gcc extensibility

[Diego Novillo]

On 3/29/12 3:01 PM, Basile Starynkevitch wrote:

> But I feel I don't wear the same hat as a plugin developer and as a GCC contributor.

Yes, you do.  You are both a GCC contributor and a plugin developer.  As 
such, you are in a unique position to know the needs of both sides.

Cleaning up the internal interfaces in the compiler may help plugin 
developers.  Perhaps one thing you could help design and implement is a 
plugin-specific API that can evolve independently of the internal APIs 
in the compiler.

Plugins that need pervasive access to compiler internals will need to 
evolve with it, and expect to need changes at every release of the 
compiler.  Others will be protected by the plugin-specific interfaces.

If we ever convert the compiler into a collection of self-contained 
libraries, then some of the things that today require plugins will be 
able to use these libraries directly.


Diego.