Re: Deprecate dwarf and mdebug support, delete nlm?

[Andrew Cagney <ac131313 at redhat dot com>]

> mec> Are there still a lot of SCO users with gcc 2?
> kj> HUGE numbers. It's the currently "officially supported" version
> kj> that we give our customers. Until 3.3 we haven't really felt GCC
> kj> 3 was ready for primetime. In fact the next "oficially supported"
> kj> version will be 3.4.

> Okay, that means we have to keep dwarf 1 for another 6-12 months
> at least.  Rats.

I don't know ....

> kj> Aside from that ... just as a general guiding light, a debugger
> kj> shouldn't be target to a compiler, that's bad practice. It should
> kj> take advantage of features of the compiler if it can but it should
> kj> be VERY forgiving of things like debug formats (ie support as many
> kj> as it can), calling conventions etc.
>
> It's a resource issue.  As Andrew Cagney has said, it takes work to keep
> all the debug format readers current with the symbol table infrastructure,
> and gdb has limited resources available.

Yes.  There is no such thing as free beer.  Someone, eventually, ends up 
paying for it.

The active GDB developers have reached the point where they are paying 
dearly for the retention of a very out-of-date debug module.

This has come up before.  The GDB 4 to 5 transition occured due to a 
switch to ISO C.  People with a K&R compiler needing to either download 
GCC, or GDB 4.x.  I'm struggling to see a reason for not making a 
similar transition here.  DWARF users need to either update their GCC, 
or download a GDB 5 series debugger.

Andrew