Maintaining compiler front-ends (Re: The state of Ada)

[Mikhail T.]

01/08/10 13:10, John Merryweather Cooper написав(ла):
> Well, the [Ada -mi] compiler needs to be upgraded to the latest version.  Linux gets a compiler out of the box, but we have to bend one to shape.
I remain convinced, that the "bending into shape" ought to begin with 
making the additional GNU compiler front-ends (be they Ada, or Lisp, 
Java, Fortran, Pascal, Objective C, etc.) addable to an already existing 
C-compiler. I find it crazy, that every such front end currently 
downloads and builds its own gcc-core-SOMEVERSION, instead of using the 
base gcc or DEPEND-ing on lang/gccSOMEVERSION.

Yes, I am well aware, that this is, how GNU people do things. No, I 
don't think, there is nothing FreeBSD can do about it... Starting with 
making all such compilers use common binutils. (Perhaps, these can even 
be provided by the base -- NetBSD does just that, for example...)

Once done, ports of front-ends will no longer have to each deal with the 
back-end making the maintainership easier and thus giving us better ports...

    -mi