From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 21445 invoked by alias); 1 Aug 2008 13:47:41 -0000 Received: (qmail 21418 invoked by uid 22791); 1 Aug 2008 13:47:37 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mtaout4.012.net.il (HELO mtaout4.012.net.il) (84.95.2.10) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:47:18 +0000 Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([84.229.228.238]) by i_mtaout4.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2004.12) with ESMTPA id <0K4X00AGMCXL0DJ0@i_mtaout4.012.net.il> for gdb@sources.redhat.com; Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:46:34 +0300 (IDT) Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:47:00 -0000 From: Eli Zaretskii Subject: Re: Move GDB to C++ ? In-reply-to: <20080801131312.GA14712@caradoc.them.org> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il To: Daniel Jacobowitz Cc: vladimir@codesourcery.com, gdb@sources.redhat.com Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii Message-id: References: <487658F7.1090508@earthlink.net> <20080801131312.GA14712@caradoc.them.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: 2008-08/txt/msg00005.txt.bz2 > Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 09:13:12 -0400 > From: Daniel Jacobowitz > Cc: Vladimir Prus , gdb@sources.redhat.com > > On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 09:42:28PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > > From: Vladimir Prus > > > Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:10:37 +0400 > > > > > > I think this discussion went a bit wrong way -- trying to convince folks that > > > *investing effort* in converting to C++ is justified. However, I don't think > > > the proposal is about making folks not interested in C++ doing any work -- the > > > proposal is about allowing folks who do some specific work, and want to make > > > use of additional features C++ provides, to use those features, while not imposing > > > significant problems on the rest of contributors. > > > > Your being busy refactoring does impose a significant problem on me. > > We are members of the same team, so how you use your time while on the > > team is important to me. > > Could you please expand on this idea? The idea is that a maintainer cannot behave with the code as he pleases, claiming that it's his time and therefore his, and only his, business. The idea is also that GDB is a collective effort, so arguments saying "I will do this because I like it, and you shouldn't care" are not something I'm willing to accept. > GDB is a GNU project, driven by volunteers and sponsored contributors. > And the sponsored contributors are volunteers from the perspective of > anyone outside the sponsoring organization. I don't understand the > objection to other people choosing to invest effort on something, even > if you think it's unimportant. Volunteer projects go where their > volunteers want to take them! We are not talking about just any change here. We are talking about a change that will affect everyone. Taking a volunteer project in such directions without consensus isn't right, IMO. Vladimir's message in effect tried to side-step the lack of consensus, which is not how I thought GDB development should advance. > And I think one of the bit structural issues in GDB is that it's hard > for even active volunteers to take it to new places. I want to make > that easier. So do I, but what new places are we talking about? Until now, I fail to see even a single direction in which someone would like to go, while the fact that GDB is written in C makes that hard.