On Fri, 8 Mar 1996 Chris_G_Demetriou@NIAGARA.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU wrote:

> > The last is the killer; there is no way we will *ever* be able to support a
> > machine that doesn't support gcc, without a major rewrite of, at a bare
> > minimum, the C compiler. [...]
> 
> Except, that i don't think that the strategy of:
> 	"make (at least parts of) it build with the native compiler,
> 	then switch to gcc when we've shown that something useful can
> 	happen"
> is at all uncommon when doing ports...

I'd like to add a couple things to this rather worn-out argument.

1) I think it's unreasonable to assume that anyone who has an interest in 
starting a port also has an interest in porting gcc.  In the overwhelming 
majority of cases, I'm sure this is not true.

2) The amount of work required to make such sweeping changes, while 
finite, is tremendously large.  Not difficult, just tedious -- even with 
the help of tools.

I think (1) is far more important than (2).  Further, it's folly to 
assert that any machine capable of running NetBSD will have a port of 
gcc available, especially with new hardware.  It took quite some time for 
useful PA-RISC gcc/gas source were available, for example...

--sxott