Overwhelmed by GCC frustration

[Segher Boessenkool]

On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 05:22:34PM +0000, Paul.Koning@dell.com wrote:
> I think G-J said "...  LRA focusses just comfortable, orthogonal targets" which is not quite the same thing.
> 
> I'm a bit curious about that, since x86 is hardly "comfortable orthogonal".  But if LRA is targeted only at some of the ISA styles that are out in the world, which ones are they, and why the limitation?

LRA does better with more regular register sets, but then again, everything
has a much easier time with regular register sets.

> One of GCC's great strength is its support for many ISAs.

100% agreed.

> Not all to the same level of excellence, but there are many, and adding more is easy at least for an initial basic level of support.  When this is needed, GCC is the place to go.
> 
> I'd like to work on moving one of the remaining CC0 targets to the new way, but if the reality is that GCC is trying to be "mainstream only" then that may not be a good way for me to spend my time.

That is not at all GCC's goal.  See the mission statement:

https://gcc.gnu.org/gccmission.html

More often used platforms naturally get better support, have more people
working on them.  And for releases those platforms are more important
than others, which is just a practical thing (bugs on those affect more
people, it can be hard to find people to solve a problem on a minority
platform quickly enough).  https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-8/criteria.html

But all targets matter, variety is good, also in GCC's self-interest.


Segher