Re: [Tinycc-devel] modern c++ compiler written in C

[Anaël Seghezzi]

Personally I don't see converting C++ to C as practical or realistic, just 
because of the complexity of modern c++.

To have, lets say, a C++11 to C99 compiler would require a huge and complex 
compiler, it might even require something like clang, so why use TCC as a 
back-end ?
Selecting only a subset of c++ features is almost like designing another 
language, modern code base won't compile on it.
It's probably saner to use (or design) another language than c++ to compile to 
C.

Anaël.


On ven 15/05/15 10:33 , "Christian Jullien" <address@hidden> wrote:

> I understand the need for LTS but, unfortunately C++ never worked like
> this.
> I have been very happy with CFRONT 2.0, then with 3.0 when it came
> out but
> I'm no more able to use them for my developments.
> I recognize that some projects can be very happy to use only
> features from
> CFRONT 2.0 only.
> Except for 'small' projects you generally need to compose your
> application
> with other C++ library and here comes the nightmare. 
> Latest C++ is generally like a 'virus'. Because, for good or bad
> reasons,
> you absolutely need the latest C++ library you depend on, you also
> need to
> move your code to the same C++ version.
> At the opposite, a C++ library using only CFRONT 2.0 features will
> not be
> usable by more recent C++ versions - I mean C++ < 10 years!!
> It is especially true when you develop on different platforms.
> LTS C++ will remain a dream.
> Again, except for the fun (life is not interesting without fun), I
> see no
> interest for cfront. I bet that if we have the rights to use cfront
> (say
> 3.0) you soon will have a zillion of requests to add 'this important
> C++
> feature I can't leave without'.
> I'll stop to pollute this mailing list with this (interesting)
> thread.
> Christian 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tinycc-devel-bounces+eligis=
> [mailto:tinycc-devel-bounces+eligis=] On Behalf Of
> Sent: vendredi 15 mai 2015 10:03
> To: 
> Subject: Re: [Tinycc-devel] modern c++ compiler written in C
> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 08:50:44AM +0200, Christian Jullien wrote:
> > Of course, I know C++ programs that satisfy themselves with
> 'basic' 
> > C++ features. The difficulty is to agree on 'basic' features. No
> two 
> > C++ users use the same 'basic' features. Some want only
> encapsulation +
> ctor and dtor.
> > No more. Others want to add inheritance. 
> Basically this means that different people and tasks need different
> languages. The intention of "one size is to fit all / to cover all
> needs"
> leads to a very complex solution.
> Given that there are needs and people satisfied with C++ without
> templates
> and exceptions, it would be nice to keep that "pre-"standard and
> implementation alive.
> I have one extremely important application, the Coda file system,
> which
> belongs to this class. The complexity of modern C++ compilers is
> several
> orders of magnitude bigger than of the application itself.
> This is bad, for several reasons (begin with security...).
> Another very useful tool, FLTK, looks to be compatible with cfront
> and also
> is much less complex than the modern development tools.
> So it is not wrong per se to have a complex language, but the fault
> is to
> "pretend" that the next C++ version becomes better for all purposes
> and is
> expected to be the only available/used one.
> Strictly speaking each version is a definition of a new language,
> but an
> appearance of a new language does not render the other ones
> obsolete. The
> versions are treated like they do obsolete the previous ones, which
> is
> actually not true.
> Sergey Korshunoff wrote:
> > Solution? May be a small c++ compiler (cfront-1 .. cfront-3) which
> can 
> > be considered LTS version.
> Sounds just right.
> Rune
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