From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 19634 invoked by alias); 29 Jul 2008 19:11:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 19626 invoked by uid 22791); 29 Jul 2008 19:11:16 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mtaout6.012.net.il (HELO mtaout6.012.net.il) (84.95.2.16) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:10:57 +0000 Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([84.229.228.238]) by i-mtaout6.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0K4S0086P7WBBD70@i-mtaout6.012.net.il> for gdb@sources.redhat.com; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:09:47 +0300 (IDT) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:32:00 -0000 From: Eli Zaretskii Subject: Re: Move GDB to C++ ? In-reply-to: X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il To: gdb@sources.redhat.com Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii Message-id: References: <487658F7.1090508@earthlink.net> <200807101901.m6AJ1UMQ007185@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <488F4AA7.7060001@gnu.org> X-IsSubscribed: yes 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: 2008-07/txt/msg00306.txt.bz2 > From: Vladimir Prus > Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:28:05 +0400 > > 1. GDB is made compiled with C++ compiler, with resulting errors removed. > 2. I refactor struct value, and folks get to comment if the resulting code > is better, or worse, than what we have. > > Comments? My only comment is a question: what for? I simply don't see the intended purpose or the goal of this. I happen to manage software projects for a living, and whenever we need to upgrade or change some of our tools, it is always because we need to do something that is impossible or very inconvenient with the existing ones. We never do it out of some abstract wish of "improving the design" or "refactoring" for their own sake. So will someone please tell, loud and clear: what do we want to do the day after GDB is rewritten in C++? Let's suppose that we magically fast-forward to the day after everything was refactored and GDB is 110% pure, OO, C++ -- what will we do the next day that we cannot or have difficulties doing today? Unless we can answer this question, refactoring and rewriting is simply waste of resources, nothing less, nothing more.