Re: dpkg in C++?

[Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>]

On 14 Apr 1997, Michael Alan Dorman wrote:

> "Brian C. White" <bcwhite@verisim.com> writes:
> 
> If you go with C++ for all of this, you will be limiting dpkg & co.'s
> portability to new platforms dramatically.

Not anymore. Right now G++ works with C++ on all platforms. The only
feature that is flaky on a cross platform basis is exceptions. We  can't
use them anyhow because G++ can't even make them work on Intel!

> For instance, for quite some time g++ simply did not work on the 
> Alpha.  Period.  If we had had it together enough to try a port at
> that time, and dpkg was all in C++, we'd have been totally out of
> luck.

Did you know that Dselect right now is written in C++? I haven't heard 
any of the people working on an Alpha or PPC port that it is uncompilable
on their platform.

> Not to mention the executable bloat issues, the fact that C++ as a
> language is still in flux, and the fact that while gcc is considered a
> bang-up C compiler, it's C++ support is not so whiz-bang.

This is true, but someday it might actually be a good C++ compiler (2.8?)
The truth is we can be done quicker with C++ and there doesn't seem to be
any real reason not to use it. All your points were true a few compiler
versions back, but certainly are not now.

I think the rest of the group agrees with me, no-one has even suggested
writing a C version.

Jason