On 5/11/23 2:12 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote: >> Date: Wed, 10 May 2023 23:14:20 -0400 >> From: Eli Schwartz via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> >> >> Second of all, why is this GCC's problem? You are not a user of GCC, >> apparently. > > He is telling you that removing support for these old features, you > draw users away from GCC and towards proprietary compilers. > > One of the arguments in this thread _for_ dropping that support was > that by not rejecting those old programs, GCC draws some users away > from GCC. He is telling you that this change will, perhaps, draw some > people to GCC, but will draw others away from GCC. The difference is > that the former group will start using Clang, which is still free > software (at least some of its versions), whereas the latter group has > nowhere to go but to proprietary compilers. So the FOSS community > will have suffered a net loss. Something to consider, I think.
Except this thread is not arguing to remove support for -std=c89 as far as I can tell? The argument is that on newer values for -std (such as the one GCC defaults to if no -std is specified), GCC should adapt its diagnostics better for the std in question. These newer -stds should stop issuing a warning diagnostic, and begin issuing an error diagnostic instead. The latter group most certainly does have somewhere to go other than proprietary compilers -- it can go to GCC with -std=c89 (or -Wno-* or -fpermissive or -fold-code or whatever the case may be). But I do not understand the comparison to -traditional. Which was already removed, and already resulted in, apparently, at least one group being so adamant on not-C that it switched to a proprietary compiler. Okay, understood. But at this point that group is no longer users of GCC... right? So what is the moral of this story? To avoid repeating the story of -traditional, and instead make sure that users of -std=c89 always have a flag they can use to indicate they are writing old c89 code? If so, then as far as I can tell, that was the original plan? The flag already exists, even. And the original proposal was to provide another flag that doesn't even restrict you to c89. -- Eli Schwartz
