GSoC: Making ports work with clang

[Kostik Belousov]

On Mon, May 03, 2010 at 06:19:48PM +0700, "C. Bergstr??m" wrote:
> Dimitry Andric wrote:
> >On 2010-05-03 12:38, "C. Bergstr??m" wrote:
> >  
> >>What's really the goal here?  What problem are you working to solve?  
> >>May I humbly say that building software with a different compiler in 
> >>itself doesn't really accomplish anything.
> >>    
> >
> >Of course it does.  It forces you to make your software portable.
> >  
> and your point is?
> 
> Are you trying to say that s/building/porting/ between compilers is 
> going to magically make the software (have less bugs, more performance 
> or better robustness)  Porting could be a means-to-an-end, but still 
> it's not an end goal.. I'm digging at what's the end goal.. After it's 
> all ported what magically happens?

For me, the project that makes sense is exactly "making freebsd ports
work with clang", instead of what many have read "making applications
ported to freebsd and compiled with clang work". Please note the subtle
but very important difference.

Even more, I do think that making our ports work with exactly clang does
not give us any useful bits, except putting the port _infrastructure_
into shape where it can use non-base compilers, as easy as changing
two or three variables. Being able to decouple base and port compilers,
and give the port system the freedom to use whatever compiler the port
masters find suitable is very important. It is important both for ports,
to not need to make a rush run to fix after base changes, and it is
important for base to not hold on ports much to make a change.

Other then that, I mostly share your refusal to drink the Kool-Aid.
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