Re: [Gnustep-cvs] Commit Update

[David Ayers]

Nicola Pero wrote:
> > > > +       * configure.ac: Detect native exception handler support in the
> > > > +       compiler, and set HAS_OBJC_EXCEPTIONS to yes if it's there.
> > > > +       * configure: Regenerated.
> > > > +       * config.make.in: New variable HAS_OBJC_EXCEPTIONS.
> > > > +       * common.make: If HAS_OBJC_EXCEPTIONS is set, add
> > > > +       -fobjc-exceptions to the ObjC flags.
> > > > +       
> > >
> > > Hello Nicola,
> > >
> > > I'm not sure we want to do this in this way.  Mixing -fobjc-exceptions 
> > > code with old style exception code will most likely cause serious 
> > > problems.  (AFAICT, unlike Apple, we actually use GCC's native exception 
> > > handling features already where as Apple still does setjmp/longjmp for 
> > > the new constructs for backward compatibility.)  An update in gcc 
> > > shouldn't require you to recompile everything.  I think we should only 
> > > activate the feature if explicitly requested by the user as a 
> > > ./configure option.
> > >
> > > Or did I miss something?
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > But, this change was only the first step in the plan ...
> >
> > The next bit will be to actually update gnustep-base so that when
> > HAS_OBJC_EXCEPTIONS is set, NS_DURING will be a wrapper around @try, and
> > similar stuff, so that all exceptions will be native,
>
>
> Thinking about it, if Adam is preparing a new major release and we are
> sort of in prerelease status, it's probably not the right moment to put
> such a major change in. :-)
>
> So maybe we should keep the option in a ./configure flag so we can develop
> and play with it, but it will be disabled by default for now (that
> includes omitting -fobjc-exceptions for now too).
>
> After the release, we can change the default settings to turn it on by
> default.
>
> Makes sense ?

I think there are very different ways people use -base cvs.  I, for one, 
do not recompile everything if I update -make/-base unless I know I have 
to.  Also I use/test code snippets with different (often older) compiler 
versions without reinstalling everything.

I believe implying that we are "waiting forever" for a feature that was 
added to GCC's mainline last week (wrt to the GNU runtime) and isn't 
even fully implemented yet (wrt @synchronize) is a bit out of 
perspective.  How many GNUstepers have actually tried this feature yet? 
 I think we should really wait until at least after the 3.5 (or 
whatever it's called) release of GCC and then give us (and users) some 
time to play with it before considering whether we want to make it the 
default.

Cheers,
David