GCC Can Now Be Worked On In C++

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GCC Can Now Be Worked On In C++

The Free Software Foundation and GCC Steering Committee have now decided that it's okay and permitted to write code for the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) within C++. Up to this point, C has been the preferred language for working on GCC...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODMwMw

[RealNC]

That's good news. I imagine this might get them some new contributions from C++ devs.

[Shining Arcanine]

That's good news. I imagine this might get them some new contributions from C++ devs.

From the looks of things, I doubt it. According to the mailing list email, they seem to want to disallow many features of object oriented programming in contributed code, which is the wrong way of doing things.

[KDesk]

Ah, I only hope that LLVM, Clang and friends get the same level features/speed as gcc, so we can stop depending on gcc.

But any way, competition is always good.

[Ex-Cyber]

From the looks of things, I doubt it. According to the mailing list email, they seem to want to disallow many features of object oriented programming in contributed code, which is the wrong way of doing things.

The only actual object-oriented feature I see mentioned is multiple inheritance, which is not exactly universally accepted even among OO programmers (Java and C# deliberately omitted it in favor of single inheritance + interfaces, for example).

[Delgarde]

From the looks of things, I doubt it. According to the mailing list email, they seem to want to disallow many features of object oriented programming in contributed code, which is the wrong way of doing things.

I think you misunderstand their intent. They're changing the rules to allow C++, but since not all existing developers are C++ experts, they're not going to immediately "anything goes" for those developers who are. So, to start with, they're allowing basic classes and the STL, but not allowing more confusing features like multiple inheritance or templates. Entirely sensible, as far as I'm concerned.

Or look at it a different way - the developers already have standards on the code they accept, and anything they find overly complicated is going to get shot down pretty quickly - whether it's because the code was badly written, or because it uses advanced language features that the reviewers aren't experts in. A coding standard like the one proposed merely identifies up-front the subset of C++ which they're prepared to accept, to avoid wasting contributor's time.

[staalmannen]

Ah, I only hope that LLVM, Clang and friends get the same level features/speed as gcc, so we can stop depending on gcc.

But any way, competition is always good.

Yeah I wonder if the decision to allow C++ in the GCC code is a consequence of them feeling the "heat" from the LLVM/Clang crowd.

LLVM/Clang is moving along VERY nicely and with recent self-hosting capabilities and their new libc++ they are quite free to get ported and used independently of GCC.
The ClangBSD project seems to move along nicely and work is underway to get the Linux kernel compiled with clang.

Competition is good indeed. I look forward to a couple of interesting years ahead.

[sylware]

Hu? C++ in a C compiler? Are gcc devs high on drugs?

[curaga]

I hope it will be in a part after the first bootstrap, so that GCC can still be compiled by a C compiler....

[zoomblab]

here comes the pain