On 23/01/13 07:11, Uday Khedker wrote:
On Tuesday 22 January 2013 10:27 PM, Richard Kenner wrote:
Perhaps it'd be worthwhile to consider making the compiler easier to
understand, maybe by devoting a lot of effort into the internals
documentation. There's a lot of knowledge wrapped up in people that
could disappear with one bus factor.
That is definitely a worthwhile goal, and one that's had mixed success
in the past, but:
- compilers are extremely complex programs and there's a limit to how
much even the best-written internals documentation can explain
- even fewer people are interested and competant to write such
documentation
as there are to do the necessary development work
This is because no matter what one has done, unless one has
contributed code, one is not considered a contributor to GCC.
I had said in http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2012-11/msg00270.html
So while we continue to improve the technology, we have to also give
due importance to making it easier for newer people to become
contributors to the technology.
GCC is not just about a code that works. It is also about building
succinct explanations of what that code is and why it has been
designed the way it is.
The way code maintainers are appointed, I think we need to identify
and appoint people who would be willing to take the responsibility so
that the developers could rally around such activities to make them
more meaningful. We need to build a group whose primary responsibility
is not development but who understand the nuances of the development
and can engage with academia and attract people who can contribute to
GCC.
And such a group cannot be identified using the criteria of code
submitted.
For every piece of code, there are dozens of people who take keen
interest in it, express opinion on it, review it critically and
contribute to improving it because eventually it could go in the
compiler.
Unless there is an express statement from the steering committee that
tutorials and training material should be accorded a similar status,
they would remain neglected and personal projects with limited reach.
Of course even in the presence of an official mandate, there is no
guarantee that things will change but we would not know until we have
tried :-)
Uday.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Uday Khedker
Professor
Department of Computer Science & Engg.
IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, India.
Email : u...@cse.iitb.ac.in
Homepage: http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~uday
Phone :
Office - 91 (22) 2572 2545 x 7717, 91 (22) 2576 7717 (Direct)
Res. - 91 (22) 2572 2545 x 8717, 91 (22) 2576 8717 (Direct)
So in all seriousness, why GCC? I suppose the volume of LLVM/Clang stuff
saying how great it is is misleading? Please link GCCs half or write a
good few pages on it please. This is serious I'd love to read it and
know more of how the two differ. I fear this coming across as sarcastic
but really no, I'd love to read such a thing.
BTW I plan to get involved, I'm new, GCC is massive....
Alec
