Hi Everybody:
I'm a senior bussiness Delphi developer, I use Linux to store our Customer Databases and I know how to operate and administrate Linux servers (and Windows of course).
I make some services on FPC complementing my programs because on a normal Linux production installation the visual desktop is not installed, then I need to use Linux services to make some things work underground.
On resume I know very well Object Pascal language and have experience to program on Linux but with FPC & Kylix.
Because I'm a Pascal lover I like GPC to.
I find some drawbacks to FPC, concerning on stability and performance, that I think GPC will not have because internally is a GCC program running on his native ambient.
I know a few things about programing on C on Linux but nothing about GCC Tools and definitely nothing about programing compilers or tool chains or some thing like that because I always work on a self contained IDE that automate all my tasks.
But if spite of this I want to learn all about, if someone want to teach me. If a new group of developers is made I want to participate on it.
Talking about the exposition of Prof. Olowofoyeku I wan to say that I agree with him about the use of a stable version of GCC but only for a Windows release.
Linux evolves every day and is not gentile with legacy applications if we use a "old development platform" is too dificult to make it work on new releases especially if want to use a Linux distribution like Fedora.
Windows by the other hand likes very much this legacy apps because it´s his most powerfull feature and ensures the continuosly use of them.
The Prof. say to me that there are a way to compile GPC with static or self contained linking that insolate the compiler about the Linux environment and in this way most of the problems are go. I don't know how to do that on GCC. Delphi allways work in this way and for that the apps always work on different Windows versions.
By the way, very thanks to the Prof. Olowofoyeku for the binaries for Windows that they make, works very well including on Windows 10.
Best Regards to all
Oscar Flor
El 5/1/2017 a las 6:52 p. m., Prof Abimbola Olowofoyeku escribió:
On 5 Jan 2017 at 12:02, John L. Ries wrote:
This discussion has been enormously encouraging. We still haven't found anyone who is currently working on the compiler itself, but there are people making it avaiable, which is a start.
I think there first needs a consensus on what remains to be done on the compiler itself (i.e., other than making it compile with recent gcc releases), how to do it, and then identifying developer(s) that are able to do it. For the moment, the only known ones with the capacity are Peter G, Frank H, and Waldek H. With Peter and Frank having possibly bowed out, Waldek is possibly the last man standing. Does he want to do it? Does he have the time? Can Waldek try to assemble a team with sufficient knowledge of gcc internals (or that is willing and able to learn)? Is there anyone else out there?
Which features are missing as far as standards compliance is concerned? It seems to me that the compiler is complete wrt ISO Standard Pascal. Some have referred to gaps in EP compliance (are these gaps deal breakers?). It might be helpful to have a complete list, with simple example code that should compile.
Unless the compiler itself is going to be improved by any remaining fixing bugs and implementing the missing features, what would be the point of simply chasing gcc releases (a hairy and never-ending task)?
If we don't have a clear understanding of what needs to be done to the compiler itself and developers to do it, then I think the development effort might well be truly dead, and attention then might needs to focus on how to get the existing code (Waldek's latest) to compile on all desired platforms.
As far as compiling gpc is concerned (whether on Linux or Windows), I have never had any real issues. I simply stick with a gcc source base that I have found to be wholly unproblematic (which for me is gcc-3.4.5/6 for Windows and gcc-4.1.2 for Linux).
Mac OSX seems to have major issues here, but it is probably nothing that cannot be solved by; [a] suitably amending the gpc driver program (gpc.c) to pass on any needed arguments, or [b] by writing a custom collect2.c to replace the default collect2.c, and compiling it separately, or [c] by writing your own os-hacks.h and putting in the include directory.
None of these options requires deep knowledge of C.
If anyone is interested, I have samples of [a], [b] and [c] which I use for Windows, to do things like dealing with Windows resource files where necessary, supplying some functionality that Windows does not have, and making certain that the gpc driver passes some specific directives (e.g., certain directory paths) to the compiler.
Best regards, The Chief
Prof. Abimbola A. Olowofoyeku (The African Chief) web: http://www.greatchief.plus.com/
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