From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 25955 invoked by alias); 3 Jul 2007 07:55:41 -0000 Received: (qmail 25943 invoked by uid 22791); 3 Jul 2007 07:55:40 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from sibelius.xs4all.nl (HELO brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl) (82.92.89.47) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Tue, 03 Jul 2007 07:55:38 +0000 Received: from brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl (kettenis@localhost.sibelius.xs4all.nl [127.0.0.1]) by brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id l637tQ3q003764; Tue, 3 Jul 2007 09:55:26 +0200 (CEST) Received: (from kettenis@localhost) by brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.14.0/8.14.0/Submit) id l637tP9e011986; Tue, 3 Jul 2007 09:55:25 +0200 (CEST) Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 07:55:00 -0000 Message-Id: <200707030755.l637tP9e011986@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> From: Mark Kettenis To: eager@eagercon.com CC: brobecker@adacore.com, gdb@sourceware.org In-reply-to: <1183434310.4689c646a3bd2@myaccount.bayarea.net> (message from Michael Eager on Mon, 2 Jul 2007 20:45:10 -0700) Subject: Re: GDB in C++ References: <46866F20.2010902@eagercon.com> <20070701205355.GC24316@caradoc.them.org> <20070702013529.GC6627@adacore.com> <1183434310.4689c646a3bd2@myaccount.bayarea.net> Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2007-07/txt/msg00029.txt.bz2 > Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 20:45:10 -0700 > From: Michael Eager > > Quoting Joel Brobecker : > > > > 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.