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Defending GCC considered futile

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Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#31

Post by weenie »

hga wrote: post #27
weenie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to realize that RMS's goal isn't to "steer important projects", and you should give him more credit in that he probably could be "connected with the present technology" if he wanted to. The fact that "he doesn't know enough anymore" doesn't say much about Stallman; instead it says a lot about how his goal of making sure software is libre has been shoved aside by everyone else for other priorities. Also, RMS…

" You have to realize that RMS's goal isn't to 'steer important projects' " Not as such, but as long as he's doing it for so many marque GNU/FSF projects....

Out of necessity and as a means to an end, because nobody else sharing his philosophy is willing to do it.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#32

Post by darkpore »

sanxiyn wrote: post #23

This is a bit over the top. As the rest of the thread points out, GCC in general still generates faster code than LLVM. "What does it take to get LLVM as performant as GCC" talk from 2014 LLVM Developers' Meeting discusses details. http://llvm.org/devmtg/2014-10/Slides/Molloy-LLVM-Performant... "GCC versus LLVM performance analysis reveals the LLVM inliner 1) does not inline certain hot functions unless a high thresh…

Does it?

http://imagine-rt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/c-compiler-benchmar...

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#33

Post by Aqueous »

Despite the inflexibility of RMS' arguments (they grate on me as much as anyone) I feel like his position on continuing to develop GCC without modern features like a fully exposed AST is necessary to keep the "moderate" position where it is.

In other words, RMS' radical position is necessary for 'moderate' LLVM to exist. Otherwise we'd still be living in the Borland/Metrowerks/Microsoft world of the 90s - proprietary toolsets developed by private companies with absolutely no intention or incentive to share their code.

In polisci there is a concept called the "Overton window." If a once-extremely radical position is held and promoted by any significant number of people, it shifts the entire conversation in that direction so that the formerly radical position seems more moderate.

That's why RMS is very necessary. He shifts the Overton Window towards what most of us consider the "reasonable" position.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#34

Post by pjmlp »

zanny wrote: post #11

So this was a discussion in /r/linux last week about LLVM and GCC et al, so I'm just reposting my statements on why a world where GCC is irrelevant is bad: It takes little effort on Apples or Googles or Microsofts part to take advantage of an LLVM dominated world to close off their own changes to it and try to force developers to use their own proprietary LLVM distributions on their own operating systems. It stops ev…

Well, you just have to look at Swift or some GPGPU drivers using LLVM.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#35

Post by glass- »

GCC is a technically inferior compiler that has been deliberately neutered to enforce its license. When software has technical limitations to enforce its license that is DRM, ergo GCC is defective by design.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#36

Post by TallGuyShort »

coldtea wrote: post #25
rayiner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about a C compiler and debugger. Lots of very technically knowledgable people shun IDEs and automated refactoring in that space.

Not that many. Except if Windows C++ developers (most of which use VS) don't qualify as "technically knowledgable people". And who is doing the judging?

There are lots of people who are not Windows C++ developers. Just because there are lots of people who DO use IDEs, doesn't mean there aren't lots of people who don't. Don't take his point so personally - he's just saying RMS ignorance is not that unusual.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#37

Post by pjmlp »

rayiner wrote: post #18
lultimouomo wrote: post #3

ESR seems a bit over the line with this mail, but what never ceases to amaze me is how RMS is disconnected with the present technology: >From its name, I guess that LLDB is a noncopylefted debugger and that some might intend it to replace GDB. But I don't know if that is so. This is just one of many, in the recent arguments he has stated several times that he doesn't understand how automated code refactoring works, h…

We're talking about a C compiler and debugger. Lots of very technically knowledgable people shun IDEs and automated refactoring in that space.

Only in the UNIX world.

In the game development world, embedded systems and desktops we like our IDEs.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#38

Post by microtonal »

Tomte wrote: post #21
rayiner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about a C compiler and debugger. Lots of very technically knowledgable people shun IDEs and automated refactoring in that space.

Sure, that's a valid choice. But when you're implementing a language ecosystem, proud ignorance of other peoples' usage patterns is just embarassing.

Is RMS still involved with gcc at all? (Non-philosophically?)

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#39

Post by nailer »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #16
lultimouomo wrote: post #3

ESR seems a bit over the line with this mail, but what never ceases to amaze me is how RMS is disconnected with the present technology: >From its name, I guess that LLDB is a noncopylefted debugger and that some might intend it to replace GDB. But I don't know if that is so. This is just one of many, in the recent arguments he has stated several times that he doesn't understand how automated code refactoring works, h…

It's not just that his knowledge is outdated, it's also that his philosophical principles will always take precedence over everything else, which includes sound and/or pragmatic technological decisions. I'm not fond of esr in general but he's spot on with this post.

> it's also that his philosophical principles will always take precedence over everything else

Exactly. I respect RMS, and his position that proprietary software is immoral, but I also know that position won't be shared by many (maybe even most) of the people who care about free software.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#40

Post by dekhn »

microtonal wrote: post #12

Already my own experiments suggest that LLVM is a superior compiler, by every metric I know of, I know OpenMP/Clang, but as far as I know OpenMP is not upstreamed in clang yet, is it? If not, it's not superior yet in scientific computing :). But it will happen soon. And at the very least, LLVM's approach has created a large ecosystem that gcc did not have.

OpenMP only covers a subset of scientific computing.
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