GCC 4.3 target deprecation proposals

[Andrew Haley]

Manuel López-Ibáñez wrote:
> On 22/01/2008, Andrew Haley <aph@redhat.com> wrote:
>> NightStrike wrote:
>>> I work for a company that makes significant use of gcc to target vax.
>>> The people involved are users, not developers, of gcc.  Does any part
>>> of the deprecation requirements take into account user base, or just
>>> developer base?
>> While the idea of weighing the user base when deprecating a target seems
>> to make some emotional sense, it doesn't make any practical sense.  The
>> compiler has to be maintained by someone or it will rot and cease to be
>> buildable, then it won't be of any use to users anyway.  If there isn't an
>> active maintainer we can't continue to include a target, no matter how many
>> users it has.
> 
> I agree that weighing the user base doesn't make any practical sense.
> But I can't understand the reason for removing something that works
> fine because it may rot in the future. I understand that if you don't
> get test results then you may assume there are no users. But if you
> get test results and they are fairly clean?

The interface between gcc and the back-ends changes fairly frequently,
so it's necessary for a target to be maintained or it will cease to work.

> Another different matter would be if there were a lot of test failures
> and open bug reports. Then it will be fair to send all test-results
> reporters and bug subscribers a message saying:
> 
> "If no one steps up to maintain this, the target will be removed in
> the next release."

That's what target deprecation is:  we always deprecate in one release cycle
and delete in a subsequent cycle.

Andrew.