Re: Move GDB to C++ ?

[Tom Tromey <tromey at redhat dot com>]

>>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

Eli> So will someone please tell, loud and clear: what do we want to do the
Eli> day after GDB is rewritten in C++?  Let's suppose that we magically
Eli> fast-forward to the day after everything was refactored and GDB is
Eli> 110% pure, OO, C++ -- what will we do the next day that we cannot or
Eli> have difficulties doing today?

Nobody is proposing that we stop all work and rewrite GDB in C++, then
look to see what we could do with it.  That would not make sense.

Aside from the one-time effort to make gdb compile with a C++
compiler, it can be introduced gradually.


C++ is not a silver bullet, it is an improvement.

I think much of Ian's PDF on moving GCC to C++ applies just as well to
gdb:

    http://www.airs.com/ian/cxx-slides.pdf

Actually, the case is even stronger for gdb.  For example, GCC does
not use RAII or exceptions -- both idioms where C++ is strong -- but
gdb does.

Naturally, every construct in C++ can be written using C.  This is
obvious, because gdb already does it.  However, in C++ it is generally
less work, and the result is often better -- more regular, simpler to
reason about, more type-safe, less buggy, or in some cases faster.

Tom