On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Frank Heckenbach wrote:

This goes back a few days...

Peter Gerwinski wrote:

...

• GPC's configuration scripts are written using `autoconf'. I have no idea how to implement such an option there. But even if I had, it would disappear again when GPC will be integrated into the main distribution line of the GNU compiler.

Does this mean that gpc will then distributed widely and will be present on many (or most) systems?

Not automatically. Peter was referring to my work to change to GPC distribution to a model simular to g77 (GNU Fortran). GPC will live in a subdirectory of the main GCC distribution (like g++, objc an g77) and can then be built using `make LANGUAGES="pascal"'. This fase is mostly completed.

The benefits of this distribution model are: 1. Less problems configuring GPC for some unix platforms, because GCC does that for us.

2. Easier porting to new versions of GCC (I had little trouble porting GPC to pentium-GCC or a cygnus CDK for instance) (Yes -- then you have a true pentium-optimizing GPC)

The next step would be to convince the GNU's to distribute GPC _with_ GCC, but I would not expect that to happen in the near future.

Now I had to make a version of my program in C because almost nobody had gpc installed - any hope that this situation will change? And are there any plans when this will happen - when gpc supports the standard(s) completely?

I think you would have to show the importance of Pascal for project GNU to archieve this. A large GPC user community, assurance that GPC development will continue over a long period to come, support for existing standards and proven stability over a wide variety of platforms would probably be another requirement.

I think we should get more attention of GNU enthousiasts first (be present on alpha.gnu.mit.edu, maybe a small README in the main GNU distribution sites, get into the GNU bulletin (if you look *real* good in the jan '97 issue, you can find a note saying a new release of gpc after some years of stagnation was made, but I think we deserve some more attention than this)

Anybody got some ideas?

JanJaap

--- The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from - Andrew Tanenbaum