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Date:      Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:09:26 +0300
From:      Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net>
To:        arch@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: your mail
Message-ID:  <20011026130926.D33751@straylight.oblivion.bg>
In-Reply-To: <20011026024542.B12708@dragon.nuxi.com>; from obrien@FreeBSD.org on Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 02:45:42AM -0700
References:  <20011025190116.C4609@dragon.nuxi.com> <XFMail.011025225351.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <20011026024542.B12708@dragon.nuxi.com>

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On Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 02:45:42AM -0700, David O'Brien wrote:
> 
> Again, other than some utopian idea of a clensed spirit, what do you hope
> to acomplish with this change?
> 
> > It seems more like you just don't like the idea since
> > you wouldn't use it and thus have decided to take it as a personal
> > issue.  It's just hardlinks to a few binaries here, not the end of the
> > world.
> 
> I will direct all the freebsd-questions email on "where did gcc" go to
> you.

FWIW, I'm with David here.  There are lots of developers coming from
non-BSD (and non-Linux) OS's, who are deeply trained to know that
the system compiler might 1. perform way worse than GCC, 2. fail to grok
some pretty standard C extensions and even standards, 3. need obscure
options and env vars to DTRT..  All of them know that the GNU C compiler
is called, well, 'gcc'.  Most of them allow people to override their
choice of compiler for their application, but many of them hardcode 'gcc'
as the compiler name.  Hordes of users know this, too.

Removing the 'gcc' executable from the base system would only make those
developers think that FreeBSD is somewhat wary of the GNU C compiler, and
that at some point, the 'cc' bundled with FreeBSD might go the same way,
so that they would once again have to build the "real" GNU C compiler
separately.  Even just giving an option, disabled by default, might steer
people down that path of thinking.

If the option is really as easy to implement as advertised, then let's
have it in a searchable mailing list archive or something, so that
the few people who really need it can find it and use it.  For everyone
else, the base C compiler is good enough, and even if it is not,
there is the devel/gcc port..

Just my two cents..

G'luck,
Peter

-- 
Thit sentence is not self-referential because "thit" is not a word.

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