From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 5183 invoked by alias); 15 Aug 2003 15:19:11 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 5170 invoked from network); 15 Aug 2003 15:19:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO localhost.redhat.com) (66.30.197.194) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 15 Aug 2003 15:19:09 -0000 Received: from redhat.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.redhat.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 939C92B88; Fri, 15 Aug 2003 10:58:26 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3F3CF512.70001@redhat.com> Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 15:19:00 -0000 From: Andrew Cagney User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; NetBSD macppc; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030223 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Nick Clifton Cc: binutils@sources.redhat.com, gdb@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: [Patch] ld config bits for i860 coff target References: <20030806014541.GY27145@bubble.sa.bigpond.net.au> <20030806025553.GA14245@nevyn.them.org> <20030806040345.GB27145@bubble.sa.bigpond.net.au> <20030814045151.GA28747@nevyn.them.org> <20030814052535.GU27145@bubble.sa.bigpond.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2003-08/txt/msg00160.txt.bz2 > Hi Guys, > > >> Alan Modra writes: > > >> I agree with Zack. If we can achieve that, then I think the generated >> files could be removed from CVS too. No problem then with churn, which >> is the major reason to have "blessed" versions of auto-tools. (At least >> these days. When Ian put that version onto the ftp site, there was no >> released version of auto-tools that worked reliably with binutils.) >> >> As I said on irc, I don't really like the idea of recommending a >> particular autoconf/automake version. Having an officially blessed >> version makes us (binutils) lazy in keeping up to date in our >> Makefile.am/autoconf.ac files, and also means that the latest auto-tools >> might not be tested as well as they could be. > > > Seconded. If we can make binutils work with modern versions of the > tools and remove the need to a particular, blessed, version then I am > all for it. How quickly people forget :-( The developer tools came to use specific generated versions of those files because people encountered host dependant problems with the generators. Guarenteed that the generated files being run, were identical across all fronts. There is a definite tradeoff - the idealistic (rose coloured) goal of things working with any generator tools vs the very real cost to the development process caused by people chasing generator bugs rather than real problems. GCC has the luxury of being somewhat insulated from the host - in theory it should be completly host independant. As one moves away from that, through the linker and towards the debugger, the dynamics change. Botched/unpredictable configure runs really hurt GDB's build. Andrew