Subject: Re: man pages & style guide
To: Peter Seebach <seebs@solon.com>
From: Julian Bean <jules@mailbox.co.uk>
List: current-users
Date: 03/09/1996 00:03:24
At 10:07 am 8/3/96, Peter Seebach wrote:
>>On Fri, 8 Mar 1996, Peter Galbavy wrote:
>>> I would like to see *BSD move towards trashing the __P() macros,
>>> declaring functions ANSI style and generally making sure that the code
>>> (at least under GNU C) compiles without warning or "areas of doubt".
>
>>For what little it is worth, I wholeheartedly aggree.
>
>>Peter
>[Peter Svensson, that was.]
>
>Shall we have a conspiracy of people named Peter who are sick to death of
>pre-ANSI compatability?
>
>Would anyone like to offer an example of a machine that:
>1.  Can physically run NetBSD in principle.
>2.  Does not have an ANSI compiler.
>3.  Cannot build gcc.
>
>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.  Given that, we can *assume* an ANSI-like compiler
>underlying the bootstrap effort; without gcc, we're long-dead anyway.
>
>Can anyone offer an example of such a platform?  If not, can anyone offer
>an example of how pre-ANSI compatability is useful, *given the existance of
>gcc*?  A platform that our code should run on that gcc doesn't, for instance?
>
>-s

Can I be an honorary Peter?

That is exactly what I was trying to say, only clearer.  If we can port gcc
to a platform, we have an ANSI compiler.  If we can't even port gcc, how
are we going to get anywhere?  In fact, is there any reason why *any* of
the source tree *has* to compile with any compiler apart from gcc, since
any working NetBSD installation has gcc, and all platforms currently (and
hopefully future) supported have a gcc?  OK, it might be neat not to depend
on gcc, but I am willing to bet we do in our Makefiles.  In fact, we depend
on berkeley make, so why not depend on gcc.  Do other compilers understand
-Werror, for example?

Jules (sometimes known as Peter)



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