Re: Objective-C bugs and GCC releases

[Joe Buck]

On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 06:14:03AM -0800, Adrian Robert wrote:
> Regardless of how you sugar-coat it, designating a language as not
> release critical means in practice you can't rely on GCC going
> forward for that language.

In a sense you are correct; Objective C has suffered because there are
not enough people working on it.  However, as a member of the community,
you could help to remedy that if you wished, and help to fix the bugs.

If people step up to the plate, it might just mean that 4.0.1 is the
first usable 4.x compiler for Objective-C.  If people *really* start
fixing bugs quickly, 4.0.0 might be fine (all we said is that the release
is not *waiting* for Objective C bug fixes, there would be no problem
accepting fixes).

> What about splitting gcc into two branches, a "high performance"
> branch, where heavy optimization takes place, and a "completeness"
> branch, where the priority is on platform and language support.
> Releases come off both branches: C, C++, maybe Fortran support on
> the performance branch, and all languages on the other.
> Periodically, both branches are merged together for a unified
> release:

You really don't get it.  The problem here is lack of resources, and
you're asking that *two* compilers be provided.