Re: gcc or cc?

[Anders Hammarquist <iko@cd.chalmers.se>]

> On Fri, Nov 27, 1998 at 16:25:09 +0100, Anders Hammarquist wrote:
> > > I think we have two goals here:
> > > - Make the developers use gcc for building C code in packages. [*]
> > 
> > This is IMHO not a good idea. On the alpha architecture, gcc (at least
> > 2.7.2.x) is broken, and all Debian packages in the alpha dist are compiled
> > with egcs.
> 
> Erm. /usr/bin/gcc _is_ egcs gcc on Alpha, unless I'm mistaken.

Now, yes. I don't believe we have a gcc 2.7.2 package anymore, we did have it 
not that long ago though. On sparc however, gcc is gcc 2.7.2

> > Being able to change compilers is a good idea. Mandating that cc be a
> > symlink to gcc is not.
> 
> Perhaps "mandating that cc on machines used to build packages is a symlink
> to the primary C compiler for the architecture the machine runs" come closer
> to what we're trying to suggest.

This sounds better, though I'm not entirely convinced. Having seen the gcc -> 
egcs transition on both alpha and sparc makes me think that a restriction like 
this would at best have made the transition take longer time. On the alpha 
there was no really clear cut when people suddenly started using egcs instead 
off gcc. The changed happened slowly, when it was suggested to try egcs 
instead if gcc was giving troubles. Then more and more developers started 
using the egcs compiler and eventually it was the de facto standard compiler. 
The egcs "gcc" package came after most (all?) packages were already being 
built with egcs.

Maybe the way to do it would be to have each architecture have the option of 
mandating a compiler. That way architectures where there is no known good 
compiler can let the maintainer choose the compiler which works best for his 
packages, while those (such as i386) that have a know good compiler can 
mandate its use.

Regards,
/Anders


-- 
 -- Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Anders Hammarquist                                  | iko@cd.chalmers.se
Not system administrator at DjungelData             | Hem: +46 31 47 69 27
Chalmers University of Technology, G|teborg, Sweden | Mob: +46 707 27 86 87