Re: GNU Pascal is still kind of alive

Hi Everybody:

I'm a senior bussiness Delphi developer, I use Linux to store our 
Customer Databases and I know how to operate and administrate Linux 
servers (and Windows of course).

I make some services on FPC complementing my programs because on a 
normal Linux production installation the visual desktop is not 
installed, then I need to use Linux services to make some things work 
underground.

On resume I know very well Object Pascal language and have experience to 
program on Linux but with FPC & Kylix.

Because I'm a Pascal lover I like GPC to.

I find some drawbacks to FPC, concerning on stability and performance, 
that I think GPC will not have because internally is a GCC program 
running on his native ambient.

I know a few things about programing on C on Linux but nothing about GCC 
Tools and definitely nothing about programing compilers or tool chains 
or some thing like that because I always work on a self contained IDE 
that automate all my tasks.

But if spite of this I want to learn all about, if someone want to teach 
me. If a new group of developers is made I want to participate on it.


Talking about the exposition of Prof. Olowofoyeku I wan to say that I 
agree with him about the use of a stable version of GCC but only for a 
Windows release.

Linux evolves every day and is not gentile with legacy applications if 
we use a "old development platform" is too dificult to make it work on 
new releases especially if want to use a Linux distribution like Fedora.

Windows by the other hand likes very much this legacy apps because it´s 
his most powerfull feature and ensures the continuosly use of them.

The Prof. say to me that there are a way to compile GPC with static or 
self contained linking that insolate the compiler about the Linux 
environment and in this way most of the problems are go. I don't know 
how to do that on GCC. Delphi allways work in this way and for that the 
apps always work on different Windows versions.

By the way, very thanks to the Prof. Olowofoyeku for the binaries for 
Windows that they make, works very well including on Windows 10.

Best Regards to all

Oscar Flor

El 5/1/2017 a las 6:52 p. m., Prof Abimbola Olowofoyeku escribió:
> 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/
>
>
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