GCC 3.3 release criteria

[Stuart Hastings]

On Tuesday, Feb 25, 2003, at 13:00 US/Pacific, Matt Austern wrote:

> On Tuesday, February 25, 2003, at 12:51  PM, Michael Hayes wrote:
>
>> tm_gccmail@mail.kloo.net writes:
>>
>>> My feelings exactly...for embedded programming and kernel work, you 
>>> need
>>> an inline keyword that consistently inlines, regardless of the 
>>> setting of
>>> the compiler switches or whatever.
>>
>> I endorse this for small-scale embedded apps where you want the
>> convenience of a function call abstraction but not the expense of a
>> call instruction---some micros only have an 8 level call stack!
>>
>> For general programming, I'm happy to defer to the wisdom of the
>> compiler.
>
> This sounds like an argument in favor of a switch like Apple's
> -fobey-inline.  Programmers who are writing specialized code
> and who need detailed control of low-level optimizations will
> use that switch, others won't.
>
> Again, I should remind people: Apple tried the experiment of
> making -fobey-inline the default.  The results were not good.

Specifically, indiscriminate use can provoke significant code bloat.

> This sort of low-level control is sometimes useful, but it's
> not useful as often as a lot of people think it is.

<platitude>
Like any tool, it can be misused.
</platitude>

> If we do make -fobey-inline available (which I think we should),
> then I encourage everyone to compile their code with and
> without it, and look at the effect on code size, before adding
> it to their makefiles.

Granted the evident interest, I will dust off "-fobey-inline", 
regression-test it, and offer a patch.

stuart hastings
Apple Computer