Re: GDB in C++

[Mark Kettenis <mark.kettenis@xs4all.nl>]

> Date: Mon,  2 Jul 2007 20:45:10 -0700
> From: Michael Eager <eager@eagercon.com>
> 
> Quoting Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>:
> 
> > > I'm in favor of switching to C++.  I'm not going to argue about it if
> > > others disagree, but I'll offer to do most of the work if the
> > > consensus is positive.
> >
> > I am against this change. I'm not going to argue either, because there
> > are some technical merits on both sides, and they have been discussed
> > to death.
> >
> > However, I think that requiring a C++ compiler will make it harder
> > for some users to build GDB, just because C++ compilers are not
> > always as readily available as C compilers.
> 
> What currently supported hosts do not have a C++ compiler?

If you consider GCC 2.95.3 a proper C++ compiler, probably none.  And
don't expect exception handling to work reliable.

> I think that this may have been a valid concern several years
> ago, but I think the lack of C++ compilers is no longer the case.

The lack of a standards compliant C++ compiler still is though.  You
can probably find a subset of the language that will work on all major
C++ compilers, but how are you going to enforce people to restrict
themselves to that subset?

Then there is the problem that with C++ compilers are generally slower
and need more memory than C compilers.  This is certainly true for
GCC.  We can currently build GDB on OpenBSD/mac68k and OpenBSD/vax on
machines with less than 32 MB of memory.  

Anyway, end of discussion as far as I'm concerned.