Re: [gentoo-dev] gcc without ada,f77,objc ?

[Matthew Kennedy <mkennedy@gentoo.org>]

"Achim Gottinger" <achim@gentoo.org> writes:

> >
> > hi achim,
> >
> > <snip>
> > > I agree and already too a short look. looks like all these packages need
> > > gcc-core and the additional sub-package.
> > > how do you think about an eclass for these builds?
> > </snip>
> >
> Hi Johannes,
> 
> the problem ist that gcc (the binary) must be build with java,fortran,ada
> support,
> otherwise gcj... do not work, so it's not possible to use the separated

IIRC, only C and C++ support need to be built for GCJ (at least this
is the case for the GCC-3.3 branch from CVS).


When I first saw this "too many languages" complaint in bugzilla, I
had a WTF kind of reaction. If f77, objc were made USE flags, what
happens when the user tries to emerge something months from now which
depends on f77 -- it would fail at ./configure most likely. 

Now I see this thread has solved that problem by proposing
gcc-{objc,java,f77} which is kinda messy like the VIM thing and mostly
un-Gentoo-like IMO, but anyway. What happens when the user has
gentoo-core, and emerge, say, octave which requires gcc-f77 to be
emerged. Can f77 truly be built outside GCC's own build system? If its
possible, what about java,objc,ada?

If not, then gcc-{c++,java,objc,ada} are merely aliases for emerging
gcc all-over, correct? 

Personally, I feel the GCC we build should be as complete and
featureful as possible. After all, your compiler is the most important
part of a source-based distro. 

My second preference is actually the USE flag approach. Only our more
knowledgeable users are going to tweak compiler USE flags and when
their ebuilds break with "Checking for a working
f77... (no)\n***Error: no fortran compiler found.***" they will know
exactly what to do (adjust their USE flags and re-emerge gcc).

Yes it seems a bit manual. Some support in portage might be need to
make it automatic (but I won't guess how hard that would be for
carpaski).

BTW, if we want to future proof ourselves a bit, some of the other
front ends currently in development are: GPC (pascal), Cobol, G95
(fortran 95), modula 2 and ghdl (like vhdl).

Matt

-- 
Matthew Kennedy
Gentoo Linux Developer


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