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/