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Interview with Mark Mitchel, GCC's Release Engineer
ICC-Rocks writes "In light of the imminent release of the first 'stable' version of GCC version 3, OSNews features an interview with Mark Mitchel, GCC's Release Engineer. They are talking about GCC 3.x, the future and the competition."
Yes, even RedHat 7.3 still has the piece of crap 2.96 compiler. WE as a community stand up and say to dist people. USE RELEASES PLEASE.
;p
RedHat, please, just make it easier to play with the system and include the stuff that we all will go and download 20 seconds after install. Please. This compiling compilers like 2.95.3 and 3.0.4 is a waste of my time.
Note: About my insinuations about GCC 2.96 brokenness, I work side by side with a person who used to be on the GCC/GNU team, and has found strange bugs in certain version of the glibc that has been compiled by the 2.96 series. It went away when using release glibc compiled by release GCC. I personally have seen evidence that this is not FUD concerning GCC 2.96 - so please, all the flaming Bero zealots explain why is it now better to have a kluged compiler when the GCC team has far superceded it?
Good - they use glibc 2.2.5 - a standard GNU release, but they compiled it with the LAME 2.96 compiler. We shall SEE if they got the compiler It has been said that if a broken compiler compiles a library the library can be strangely broken and very difficult to debug. This goes to show RedHat why they shouldn't do this, and properly couple GLIBC 2.2.5 with GCC 3.0.4 as intended by GNU. Bero seems adamant about maintaining a 2.96 fork, which is costing time and resources and annoying users. I wouldn't care so much if 1.1.2, 2.95.3, 3.04 and RH-BROKEN.296-special were all included, but such is not the case. Lame.
However, why did gcc3 appear in 7.2 and not 7.3? All I ask is that yes, they can compile how they see fit, and so can I. My only request is to for them to provide the rest of the compilers for me that have been cleanly installed "their way," so that I don't have to go through the same shenanigan every time I upgrade or change a system or install a new one, etc.
On a side note, as far as GCC 3.X not being prime time, for C is surely is, I don't know about the rest, but for C its, as far as I can see, quite useable, stable and reliable with some interesting new optimizations. I also like ICC, from Intel, but they have very strange and frustrating licensing weirdness, and the kernel can't be compiled with it.
A lot of the GCC 3 is broke with regards to the C++, that's a crock. Both sides blame the other, but from what I have seen, most of the crap that doesn't compile right on GCC 3.x is the writer's fault, not the compiler. Think, what is harder, writing hello world or writing a compiler to compile hello world. I'm more inclined to believe the compiler guy that has to work on the project.
I see the reason to maintain binary compatibility to a point. For their manageability it makes sense, to some degree. So if its easier for them to put stuff out, go ahead.
I think that GNU has been a great force in the world, and to uselessly outpace them or point fingers at them is frustrating and bad for both sides of the camp.
One more note on RedHat, I am what would be the "customer," I do buy the media and get RH with new systems, etc. "Customers" who use this as a server don't like things being out of whack. I wish I could make it a requirement that the EGCS 1.1.2 release, 2.95.3 release, GCC 3.0.X release be included already to make things easier. It was there in 7.2, and then yanked out. I didn't hear the pissing and whining from the usual suspects about why this was done, but, I can only imagine they went off in some strange direction and have to dig themselves out quietly and slowly form this bastard fork, which, NO "readme," or "install" doc *EVER, EVER* requests. Face it. 2.96 is some RedHat only (Not Mandrake, Not SuSE) strange kluge. Programmers ignore in favor of GNU releases. Debian ignores it. It's a strange wart that needs wart removing acid, now.
8. What did you think about the Intel Compiler v6 that came out recently? Did you have time to have a look at it?
Mark Mitchel: I do not have enough information about that compiler to comment on it.
I know that x86 is just 1 arch for gcc, however it is an important one, being the most common. I would think that those heavily involved with gcc (and especially the x86 backend) would be much more interested in how well the other compilers performed since they are 'the competition' as it were.
It's kind of depressing that he 'doesn't have enough information to comment'.
if intel's compiler had been released last month or thereabouts, I could understand, but IIRC, it was released about 6 months ago.
Zapman
Yet Debian Woody uses an unreleased GCC 2.95.4? There goes that argument.