darwin may lose primary target status on FSF gcc

[Brian Barnes]

On Sep 22, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Toby Peterson wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 15:44, Brian Barnes <bcbarnes at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> On Sep 22, 2009, at 5:21 PM, Toby Peterson wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 15:08, Jack Howarth <howarth at bromo.med.uc.edu 
>>> >
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 03:02:00PM -0700, Toby Peterson wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 14:43, Brian Barnes <bcbarnes at gmail.com>  
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The llvm/clang community appears to have nobody / very few people
>>>>>> interested
>>>>>> in implementing a Fortran front-end
>>>>>
>>>>> Only one way to change that...
>>>>
>>>>  I suspect a careful review of the gfortran progress will show
>>>> that it only gained traction when programmers contracted to improve
>>>> it came on board. Expecting a 'grass-roots' fortran project to
>>>> viable is a bit unrealistic. Only if FSF gcc became unbuildable
>>>> on darwin might a company feel the need to expend funds on such
>>>> a project.
>>>
>>> In that case let's hope it becomes unbuildable sooner rather than  
>>> later.
>>
>> Or, perhaps let's hope that people exist with motive, means and  
>> opportunity
>> to contribute to gcc and keep it working on OS X, and are able to  
>> do so.  I
>> would rather not lose future updates to the only fast, free Fortran  
>> compiler
>> on OS X.  I cannot comprehend why you wish for some of us to lose  
>> our tools
>> with no fast, free replacement even vaguely in sight.
>
> gcc 4.4 will continue to work, and in the meantime development on a
> viable llvm-based replacement can proceed. Seems quite straightforward
> to me.

Well, except for the fact that development of a llvm-based replacement  
is not proceeding, no plans exist for it to proceed, would have to be  
started from scratch, may not be free, and would take years... but  
you're still missing the point: Jack and I are pessimistic about a  
free, feature-complete llvm-based replacement _ever_ existing for  
Fortran.  Besides, if gcc/gfortran 4.5 doesn't work on OS X, I lose an  
update to my normal toolchain, and I'm trying to get work done here!

I'd also prefer to be able to use the same free compiler (gcc/ 
gfortran) for development on both OS X and linux (since most HPC codes  
will eventually be run on linux machines for data collection).  The  
alternative, buying the Intel compiler to get work done, is just more  
fodder for the people that want to talk about the "Apple Tax".

Brian