Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gcc 4.3.4 ---> 4.4.1

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Saturday 15 August 2009 18:42:11 Mark Knecht wrote:
> Alan,
>    I agree with your description, but I disagree that the upgrade
> guide is actually very clear about this. It has us upgrade the
> compiler (OK), switch to the new compiler (OK), rebuild the libtool
> stuff (OK) then then states:
>
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gcc-upgrading.xml
>
> <QUOTE>
> To be completely safe that your system is in a sane state, you must
> rebuild the toolchain and then world to make use of the new compiler.

And I disagree with you. The Gentoo docs are written in a style similar to 
RFCs, with very explicit meanings attached to words like SHOULD, MUST, MAY, 
CAN and others.

It is not the colloquial meaning, where these things pretty much all mean the 
same thing.

The document says "to be completely safe" - this does not mean that you will 
be unsafe it you don't do it, it simply means that it does in fact guarantee a 
form of safety if done. You cannot assume the negative must be true.

The later use of the word "must" does not apply to the general case (i.e. you 
must do it regardless), it depends on the prior "if" statement and should be 
read as "if you want to take advantage of this guarantee, do the following'

I do agree with you that the document should be reworded. Not because it's 
unclear, but because this topic comes up so often; and it almost always comes 
down to a lessened ability to read correct English - too many people have 
buggy language parses in their heads [I'm not accusing you of that :-) I'm 
speaking in general]

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com