Re: GCC Mission Statement

2021-06-09 Thread Didier Kryn
Le 09/06/2021 à 07:09, Valentino Giudice via Gcc a écrit :
> If the Steering Committee updates the mission statement, it may appear
> that the mission statement follows the decisions of the steering
> committee (in place of the contrary). In that case, what would be the
> purpose of a mission statement?

    A chicken and egg question, hey (~:

--     Didier





Re: A suggestion for going forward from the RMS/FSF debate

2021-04-17 Thread Didier Kryn
Le 16/04/2021 à 19:06, Richard Kenner a écrit :
>> The authority of the FSF, GNU and RMS over GCC is and has been a
>> fiction for decades,
> For the most part, I agree.
>
>> It would be usefull to clarify with the FSF and GNU what the
>> actual relations are,
> Why?  What would that gain?  I go back to my analogy of the British Queen.
> What would be gained by "clarifying" that if she actually intervenes
> non-trivially in the government of any Commonwealth nation, she'd lose
> that power?

    There are differences between the queen and RMS, even if the image
has some merit. For example, the UK remains a formal monarchy in part
because the queen has better social skills than RMS.

    The supporters of software freedom in general are probably not in
favour of a monarchy, even formal, even if they know their debt to RMS.
Therefore, if the GNU project loves to keep this childish fictious power
of the chief GNUisance, this doesn't prevent GCC to remain associated to
the FSF.

--     Didier






Re: A suggestion for going forward from the RMS/FSF debate

2021-04-16 Thread Didier Kryn
    From reading most of this thread, it is clear to me that

    - The authority of the FSF, GNU and RMS over GCC is and has been a
fiction for decades,

    - This fiction has been erased from the official web page of the
project,

    - It would be usefull to clarify with the FSF and GNU what the
actual relations are,

    - This can certainly be done in a polite way without all sorts of
rant, and arguments with no relation with Free Software, in particular
attacks ad persona.

    The power is and has always been in the hands of the people doing
the job (the developpers/maintainers). But those who have the power
would be wise to pay attention to the opinions of the many afficionados
of GCC, GNU and Free Software in general, even those who aren't
contributors. These people aren't trolls; they speak up because they are
concerned about the project.

--     Didier




Re: removing toxic emailers

2021-04-14 Thread Didier Kryn
Le 14/04/2021 à 16:49, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc a écrit :
> On Wed, 14 Apr 2021 at 15:39, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> On 14.04.21 15:18, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
>>> A strong norm about off-list behavior and politics being
>>> out of bounds here is also helpful.
>> That would have banned the whole discussion about the potential
>> fork from the start.
> No, because once again, I raised the topic of a fork because I do not
> feel that association with GNU or FSF benefits the GCC project. I did
> not say "we have to cancel them because I don't like their politics"
> (as it happens, I do like their politics, which is why I've spent two
> decades writing copyleft code for GCC, I just think they have failed
> to evolve and are sadly irrelevant today).
 

    Well,  /I just think they have failed to evolve and are sadly
irrelevant today/  boils down to  /They have again elected RMS./ The
word  /today/  sounds like a reference to the  /modern standards/  I
have read before on the subject. (~:

--     Didier





GCC association with the FSF

2021-04-11 Thread Didier Kryn
Le 08/04/2021 à 17:00, David Brown a écrit :
> At some point, someone in the public relations
> department at IBM, Google, Facebook, ARM, or other big supporters of the
> project will get the impression that the FSF and GNU are lead by a
> misogynist who thinks child abuse is fine if the child consents, and
> will cut off all support from the top down.  The other companies will
> immediately follow. 

    Here we are. The liberty of expressing opinions is too much of a
liberty. This is ironical to read in a mailing list dedicated in some to
a free software project.

    But you are wrong on a point. The bannishment or RMS isn't being
called by big companies or their customers. In the same way that Donald
Trump's accounts on social networks have been closed on request of
employees of these networks, here the employees of the same social
networks and other companies call for the bannishment of RMS.

    "My opinion, not my employer's" is probably true. If the majority of
employees call for lynching someone, the employer let them do because
s(?)he is concerned by the cash flow first, not ideology.

    I agree that the constitution of FSF, GNU, and GCC would gain to be
clarified and cleared from some childich relics, but that doesn't mean
the banishment of anyone and doesn't justify the cabal we have seen on
this list.

    Social networks, besides their likely utility, are a place where
hatred builds up pretty easily by mutual excitation because people get
the illusion they're right when they're many. This has always existed
amongst humans but social networks ease and boost this trend. This is
one good reason to keep away.

> ... no one can
> be in doubt that [RMS's] attitudes and behaviour are not acceptable by
> modern standards and are discouraging to developers and users in the
> FOSS community.

    It is obviously wrong that "no one can". Several persons have
expressed their disagreement whith these statements. Or do you mean "no
one is allowed to"?

    What do you mean by "modern standards"? Do you realy think there are
standards for political correctness? Is it an ISO?  POSIX?  IEEE? Sorry
for the easy joke. Probably you could express better what you mean (~:

Le 10/04/2021 à 14:50, Bronek Kozicki via Gcc a écrit :
> Hello there
>
> As a long time GCC user, who is also a father to teenage children, I would
> very much prefer if a person who openly expressed opinions, and also openly
> exercised behaviours, which I consider abhorrent, was *not* associated with
> the GCC project.

    I bet you would also prefer that this person doesn't live on the
same planet as you. Sorry but this is just plain intolerance.

    The root of the cabal is there:  intolerance. The arguments about
the behaviour of RMS or the mere fact that his name appears on the web
page are mostly given (conciously or not) to hide the actual mobile.

--     Didier





Re: Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee

2021-03-30 Thread Didier Kryn
Le 30/03/2021 à 11:47, Didier Kryn a écrit :

Sorry it wasn't Jonathan Wakely but Richard Biener

> Le 30/03/2021 à 10:25, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc a écrit :
>> I've been asking myself what benefit GCC gets from being linked to GNU and
>> all I can think of is the DNS records for gcc.gnu.org.
>     Can you remind the meaning of GCC. Isn't it "*GNU* Compiler
> Collection" ?
>
>     If this is still true, it doesn't seem appropriate to "break the
> communication channel" as you said in a previous mail. Or maybe you
> might suggest a new name for the project (~:
>
> --     Didier
>
>




Re: Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee

2021-03-30 Thread Didier Kryn
Le 30/03/2021 à 10:25, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc a écrit :
> I've been asking myself what benefit GCC gets from being linked to GNU and
> all I can think of is the DNS records for gcc.gnu.org.

    Can you remind the meaning of GCC. Isn't it "*GNU* Compiler
Collection" ?

    If this is still true, it doesn't seem appropriate to "break the
communication channel" as you said in a previous mail. Or maybe you
might suggest a new name for the project (~:

--     Didier




Re: Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee

2021-03-27 Thread Didier Kryn
    I've been lurking on this list for a while but never contributed in
any way to the project. Therefore I understand my voice has little weight.

    I'm terrified by this campaign of harassment against the person who
has given the biggest contribution to free software. This confirms to my
eyes that the People *is not* the defensor of Liberty and only the law
can defend it. The success of this campaign will prove that even the
liberty to express personnal opinions seems excessive to the People.
This is how terror begins.

--     Didier




Re: Usage of C11 Annex K Bounds-checking interfaces on GCC

2019-12-15 Thread Didier Kryn

Le 16/12/2019 à 03:43, Liu Hao a écrit :

I generally consider the Glibc folks better trained in C and more
knowledgeable of the C standard then me. If the Glibc folks are making
the mistakes, then there is no hope in practice for folks like me or
those who are just starting in C. There are too many sharp edges.


Yes yes why don't you use Java? If you write C you are supposed to have
been well educated ('well educated' means at least you should RTFM
before ask). C is not for beginners.


    C is a low-level language and the C programmer is just "supposed to 
know what (s)he does."


    If this is critical for you, then start learning a higher level 
language (Java as suggested  or  Ada). You will love it and write safe 
programs. The solution isn't in a library, it is in the language 
allowing the compiler or run-time to detect these errors and/or forbid 
dangerous constructs. Note that the later feature doesn't forbid you to 
do what you want; it forces you to do it well.


    Didier (just a lurker on this list)




Re: gcc-gnat for Linux/MIPS-32bit-be, and HPPA2

2018-07-22 Thread Didier Kryn

Le 22/07/2018 à 03:24, Carlo Pisani a écrit :

hi guys
got some deb files from an old Debian's archive(1), converted .deb
into .tgz, and installed
but it seems there is no gnat-gcc

I don't know how Gnat works on Debian, but for sure it doesn't work
like the version I have on my gentoo-x86 box
where I have prepared this test file, hello.adb

with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Hello is
begin
Put_Line ("Hello WORLD!");
end Hello;

that I can compile via "gnatmake hello.adb"

gnat make -v hallo.ada

GNATMAKE  4.3.5
   "hello.ali" being checked ...
gnatgcc -c -x ada hello.adb
End of compilation
gnatbind -x hello.ali
gnatlink hello.ali

as you can see it calls "gnatgcc"

On HPPA:
- "gnatgcc" is not existing out of the debian pagkage(1)
- gnat make calls "gcc-4.3"
- the installed gcc (provided by gentoo) can't compile ada-files
- since the compiler was compiled with languages=C,C++,Fortran


and idea? hints?

(1) 
http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20091008T120404Z/pool/main/g/gnat-4.3


    I have observed that, in Debian, the default version of gcc used 
for Ada is sometimes older than the version used for C/C++. In other 
words, the default gcc doesn't understand Ada. Therefore gnatgcc points 
to another version of gcc, which understands it. That might explain, at 
least in part, the difference you see.


    Didier




Re: Detecting superfluous "else"

2018-07-21 Thread Didier Kryn

Le 19/07/2018 à 10:49, U.Mutlu a écrit :

Hi,
it makes me 'crazy' when I see such if-else constructs:
  if (x)
    return 7;
  else
    return 4;

(Of course in this case one better would use the shorthand "return x ? 
7 : 4;", but that's not the issue here)


The 'else' is obviously superfluous/redundant, ie. unneeded at all:
  if (x)
    return 7;
  return 4;

Is it possible to warn about such unneccessary occurances of "else"?
If not, then I suggest to add a new warning code -Wsuperfluous-else or 
-Wredundant-else or so.


Thx


    Let me express the point of view of an old C programmer (and also 
programmer in other languages).


    From a semantic point of view  (if I can dare to use this word) the 
two forms are different.


    The first one, which you dislike, is appropriate in the general 
situation of an alternative in which the two cases have the same order 
of probability to happen. The form you propose is more appropriate to 
catch exceptions while leaving straightforward the "normal" execution 
thread.


    Although the C language is very loose about semantics, leaving it 
to the appreciation of the programmer, a well written program is one in 
which the author takes care of semantics. Some programmers find it 
stylish to minimize the character count of expressions and the size of 
the source file. My opinion is that size doesn't matter; the important 
is to favour the readibility, which includes making as clear as possible 
what the intent of the author is. Often, this is better achieved by the 
way the instructions are written than by adding comments.


    Thanks.

                    Didier