darwin may lose primary target status on FSF gcc

[Toby Peterson]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 17:43, Jack Howarth <howarth at bromo.med.uc.edu> wrote:
> 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).

That's why I suggested *contributing* to llvm-gfortran or a native
front-end. If it lags behind, make it better. FSF gcc just doesn't
have much of a future on our platform...

- Toby