From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <0ffa2db088558e493a30ecad96ee426e@proxima.alt.za> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] GNU Make Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 07:34:43 +0200 From: lucio@proxima.alt.za In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: 8fe16b70-eacd-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > well with gnu make you can image building gcc. > > I am wondering if you couldn't build gcc 0.1 or whatever, and once that > was working, iterate up to later versions by building on the first > version. My memory from 0.1 was that it was pretty portable. I can only presume that dhog was under pressure to build GCC (how could he not be?) and that it was simpler to bootstrap it using GCC itself. As far as I understand, both GCC and the binutils are fairly portable, there ought to be a way to port GCC using the native compiler in its APE impersonation. Binutils 2.15 have just been released, with a minor glitch I was hoping would be corrected immediately, but not serious enough to interfere with building them under APE. But it will take me some time and effort. Once I have gas and ld, GCC 3.5 ought to be released (if it isn't already) and then whether I use dhog's 3.0 or try to bring the lot under APE will be an informed decision to be made at the time. The crucial thing will be to leave a structure in place so that the porting efforts are not lost. As an aside, dhog seemingly needed m4 as well as gmake, I have made both of these APE-compliant. Whether we now place them in /sys/src/ape/cmd or the main /sys/src/cmd (as was done with CVS) depends on the wishes of the authorities. Frankly, my opinion is that they ought to be in an area of their own so that new releases can more easily be tracked. CVS and ghostscript might need to move there as well. Lastly, APE attempts to compute errno by searching a list of error strings to find a match. Would it be out of the question to enhance all Plan 9 software to use a library of error messages that also includes a numeric code? I appreciate it is a tall order, but even if it needed to be released as 5th Edition I believe it would be a significant improvement. I'm willing to do it, but I'm sure I could use all the advice this list is capable of. ++L