Gcc as callable libraries (was: removing toxic emailers)

[David Edelsohn]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 5:04 PM Thomas Koenig via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>
> David,
>
> for some reason or other, I did not get your mail, so I will
> just reply copying in from the archive.
>
> First, thanks for injecting some sanity into the discussion.
>
> I will not discuss RMS' personal shortcomings or the lack of them.
> In today's toxic political climate, such allegations are often
> made up and weaponized without an effective defense for the
> alleged wrongdoer.  I don't know the truth of the matter, and I make
> a point of not finding out.
>
>  > In many ways the last 8 years of my career have been
>  > an attempt to get gcc to respond to the appearance of LLVM/clang (I've
>  > added JIT-compilation, improved diagnostics, and I'm implementing a
>  > static analysis pass)
>
> And this is highly welcome, and has made gcc (including gfortran) a much
> better compiler.  I well remember how you implemented the much better
> colored error messages that gfortran has now.
>
>  > Perhaps a pronouncement like: "try to make everything be consumable as
>  > libraries with APIs, as well as as standalone binaries" might have
>  > helped (and still could; can we do that please?)
>
> That makes perfect sense, as LLVM shows, and is something that the
> steering committee could decide for the project (or rather, it could
> issue a pronouncement that this will not be opposed if some volunteer
> does it).
>
> I think this could be as close to an unanimous decision as there can
> be among such a diverse community as the gcc developers.  If the FSF
> takes umbrage at this, the ball is in their court.

Andrew Macleod led a BOF at GNU Cauldron 2013 that discussed
re-architecting and modularizing GCC along these same lines.  The
header flattening was one step.

Thanks, David