darwin may lose primary target status on FSF gcc

[Toby Peterson]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 16:41, Brian Barnes <bcbarnes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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".

Still failing to see relevance here. I'm sorry that the gcc devs are
causing you this inconvenience, but the fact remains that gcc is not a
viable option moving forward. More importantly, it's not relevant to
this mailing list.

- Toby