Re: [RFA] Turn on -Werror by default

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at false dot org>]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2006 at 06:55:28PM +0100, Mark Kettenis wrote:
> From time to time I play with GCC 4, and try to fix a few problems,
> but I get the feeling I'm the only one.

You may be the only one who prioritizes fixing these warnings, which I
still maintain are mostly useless.  I think your sample is seriously
biased.  A few points:
  - You're the only active GDB developer I can think of offhand that
    considers the warnings a serious problem.  I do consider them a
    problem - one which should be fixed, before we make policy
    statements about them.
  - You're primarily focused on the BSDs, and the BSD system compilers
    can currently build GDB without warning.
  - Debian/unstable and Fedora Core, both popular development
    platforms, can not.
  - Many people doing development on GDB HEAD are likely to have GCC
    HEAD lying around, which also can't build GDB with -Werror.

This patch is a policy statement that the GDB developers agree with you
on the importance of warning-free code, which will inconvenience you
not at all, and me a great deal.  Can you see where I'm coming from?

I maintain that the correct way to turn on -Werror is to first fix the
warnings.  As the developer who thinks -Werror is an important step
forward, the burden is on you to make GDB warning-free on a reasonable
set of platforms - I think we both agree on that already.  I'm
disputing your reasonable set of platforms, however.

GCC 4 is unavoidably the future.  Ignoring it here won't make it go
away, it will just force someone else to clean up after you.

> I'm certainly not proposing to do that; even with -Werror enabled, GDB
> builds fine on most systems.  And when we enable -Werror, we should
> seriously consider turning it off again before release.

I disagree with "most" in this paragraph.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery