Re: Recent removal of a.out and COFF support for sparc

[Jeff Law]

On 08/08/2018 06:03 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Aug 8, 2018, at 5:35 PM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>> On 08/08/2018 11:27 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
>> ...
>>> Nor are there plans to trim the target set of gcc down to "current 
>>> mainstream targets", whatever that might mean.
>>
>> Well, yes, I just linked one of those gcc targets - the e500 target - earlier
>> today. The m68k target in gcc is also constantly under threat because of the
>> planned cc0 removal. Both the e500 and the m68k targets in gcc are actively
>> used. The m68k target is still very popular despite its age.
> 
> As others have said, you need a maintainer for a target.  I don't know what 
> the story is for the two platforms you mentioned.  Maintaining an older not 
> so technically demanding platform is not all that hard.  I took on the pdp11 
> target some years ago because I wanted to make sure it stayed alive, and it 
> still is.  For that matter, I recently did the CC0 conversion for it.  It's 
> not that big a job, and probably easier for the m68k.
Actually m68k is almost certainly tougher than pdp11, both in terms of
size for the mechanical parts and in terms of complexity.  We've got a
machine description that is 3x larger, multiple condition codes and a
whole lot of effort already spent to do redundant tst/cmp elimination on
the m68k.  Replicating it in the non-cc0 world will be nontrivial.

I'm hoping my son will wrap up the h8 stuff and move on to the m68k.
Regardless of m68k state I want to declare all cc0 ports deprecated in
gcc-9.  A stretch goal is to declare all non-LRA targets as deprecated.
Note this is personal opinion and is not an official statement of policy
or intent by the GCC project.

jeff