Re: cygwin gcc 3.4 and cygwin

[Ronald Landheer-Cieslak <ronald at landheer dot com>]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Brian Ford wrote:

> Max Bowsher wrote:
> >Brian Ford wrote:
> >> I thought I had a legitimate concern and question, not one that
> >> deserved "just" a sarcastic response.
> >Yes, it was sarcastic, but don't take it personally. Chris is *busy* and
> >this is quite a minor issue.
> We are all *busy*.  Well, ABI breakage is not normally considered a minor
> issue.
Mr Faylor is the head of the Cygwin project. He might not be the 
papa-poule kinda guy and sweet-talk you to bed, but he does know what he 
is doing, especially when it comes to his work on Cygwin.

If mr Faylor tells you not to worry because Cygwin is safe, that means 
that you shouldn't worry because Cygwin is *safe*.

If mr Faylor tells you that he builds Cygwin with OOTB gcc on a regular 
basis (and he did so in response to me saying the gcc OOTB is not a 
working compiler for the Cygwin environment) that means that he's right 
and I was wrong. Even if it means that whatever he compiles with the OOTB 
gcc compiler is not compatible with whatever he compiles with the Cygwin 
edition of gcc - mr Faylor knows what he's doing, and he has known what 
he's doing for quite a while now.

> I know from following the list that I am just supposed to accept Chris
> this way.  But honestly, I'd rather receive no reply than one with just
> sarcasim.  One with sarcasim and real content would be fine.  It takes
> nearly the same amount of time to do both.
Like I (and many others) said: he's not one to sweet-talk you to bed - you
can ask your mom & dad to do that.

>>> It would be easy to accendentally release things for Cygwin that are
>>> ABI incompatible with Cygwin's gcc.
>> structs containing doubles aren't a hugely common feature. Besides, I
>> think Chris knows what he is doing.
> Many libraries might be affected, especially ones that deal with
> images, etc.
Have there been reports of bugs related to this ABI breakage lately? hmm?

> BTW, this may not be the only issue, it is just the only one I have
> bumped into so far.  I wish I could feel comfortable that it is the only
> one, but with responses like this, I don't feel warm and fuzzy about
> anything Cygwin.
If you find something broken, take a look at 
http://www.cygwin.com/bugs.html and report it.
If you can fix it, feel free to do so.

[snip legwork for gcc]

Frankly, as long as mr Faylor doesn't say he's had it with Cygwin and
wants to take more time to do, say, French cuisine (do you cook, Chris?  
It's fun!) I'd say Cygwin is in good hands, and wouldn't worry too much 
about ABI incompatibility and other such nonesense.

rlc



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