GCC 4.0 [Re: FreeBSD 6 is coming too fast]

[Scott Long]

Kirill Ponomarew wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 25, 2005 at 08:05:14AM -0600, Scott Long wrote:
> 
>>Well, I'd caution against jumping into GCC 4.0 just because of the
>>claims of 25% speed improvement.  That's about the single worst reason
>>to do it.  But if you're interested in moving the technology forward,
>>I'd happily encourage you.  The changed language constructs are the big
>>problem (extern struct foo bar[]; is no longer valid) since you not only
>>need to sweep the FreeBSD tree for them, you also need to sweep the
>>ports tree.  I have mixed feeling on the value of GCC making sloppy
>>language extentions available for years and then suddenly revoking them,
>>and I know others that have been affected by 4.0 aren't terribly happy
>>either.
> 
> 
> Well. if we're going to import it, it should be tested on pointyhat
> first.  IIRC Kris already run tests for some pre 4.0 versions.
> 
> -Kirill

Yes, that is a step, one of many, in porting a new compiler.  So, if
people want it done, there needs to be less hand-waving and more typing.

Scott