MS/CW-style inline assembly for GCC

[Mark Mitchell]

Dale Johannesen wrote:

> On May 6, 2004, at 6:40 PM, Mark Mitchell wrote:
>
>>> For me, compatibility is the number one priority. Ease of use comes
>>
>>
>> That's what I figured. :-)
>>
>> So, let's take truth-and-beauty out of the discussion; this isn't 
>> about a better technology.  It might or might not be better, but 
>> that's not the root of the issue.  The bottom line is that Apple 
>> wants CW syntax because it wants to convert existing CW users to GCC 
>> users.  To do that, it wants to be able to say "you can just 
>> recompile your code" rathern than "you have to rewrite your code".   
>> In fact, for all widely-used CW extensions, Apple would probably like 
>> to see them in GCC.  It's easy to see the Apple product-marketing 
>> logic here.
>
>
> I've been staying out of this since I'm of the "they should be writing 
> .s files" school,  but
> criticizing the idea *on these grounds* seems unreasonable.

I'm not criticizing the idea because it makes sense to Apple's 
product-marketing people, and I'm certainly not trying to draw any moral 
conclusion about Apple's desires.  Doing what makes sense for your 
company is what running a business is all about.  My point was only that 
I don't think that the primary motivation from Apple is that this is a 
better assembly syntax; the primary motiviation is that it's 
CW-compatible.  Some other equally better assembly syntax that was not 
CW-compatible would be nowhere near as attractive to Apple.  So, I think 
we should be talking about what benefits being compatible brings -- as 
you did by talking about the fact that the GCC community might increase 
as a result of this change -- rather than talk about how wonderful the 
syntax is.

Your counter-argument -- that making this change will so increase in GCC 
so as to provide new longer-term benefits that outweigh the costs -- is 
definintely well-formed, but I don't buy it.  Perhaps I'm not visionary 
enough. :-)  I still think that this is a feature that will have more 
costs that benefits -- largely because I see little benefit from this 
feature on non-Apple platforms.

-- 
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery, LLC
(916) 791-8304
mark@codesourcery.com