darwin may lose primary target status on FSF gcc

[Jack Howarth]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 05:31:40PM -0700, Toby Peterson wrote:
> 
> Given current reality, you're probably better off contributing to
> llvm-gfortran... or better yet, a native fortran front-end for llvm.
> FSF gcc is barely relevant on our platform these days.
> 
> - Toby

Toby,
   I created the fink llvm/llvm-gcc42 packages to provide
them with a llvm-gfortran. However the gfortran in llvm-gcc42
is just that (locked at the gcc 4.2.1 release because it
was the last GPLv2 release that Apple will accept). It has
much worse performance than the current gfortran in gcc 4.4.0,
has fewer features and significant portions of the newer
features aren't working properly. The chances of llvm-gcc
being updated to a newer release are basically zero and 
there is no clang related fortran compiler at all. You
work with the hand your dealt...and for us that is trying
to keep the wheels on FSF gcc for darwin as long as possible.
Actually gcc 4.4.1 has excellent testsuite results on darwin10.
Also look at...

http://www.mail-archive.com/fink-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg18166.html
http://archive.netbsd.se/?ml=fink-devel&a=2009-03&m=10250229

where I benchmarked the various gcc compilers on Intel darwin.
Lastly, if you check the table at...

http://users.physik.fu-berlin.de/~tburnus/gcc-trunk/benchmark/

you will see how really bad it would be to have to rely on
g95 even if it built on darwin10 (almost 3 times slower
than current gfortran).
           Jack