On 19 December 2016 at 10:17, Seima Rao wrote: > I was referring to one of three approaches: > > i) Write a Specification document and a matching testsuite > > ii) Document _all_ data and code together with file formats > (e.g. dumps). > > iii) Both (i) & (ii) > > (i) is easy
I disagree. A functional specification would either be constantly out-of-date or would be a lot of effort to maintain (think how many different architectures GCC generates code for, and how often the instruction sets for the major architectures change). There would be some advantages to having the document in place, but only if it was maintained very thoroughly, which is unlikely to happen IMHO. We have testsuites. The output formats are defined by other documents we don't control (ABI specifications, processor instruction set references). The "UI" is defined by the manual. Duplicating this information in other documents would be a lot of effort and is not very compatible with the way GCC is developed. There is no top-down design committee that oversees GCC development and would act as gatekeepers to specification changes. The source code, the testsuite and the manual are the specification for GCC. > (ii) is difficult > (iii) doesnt sell the product well What product is being sold here?
