Re: Compiler ABI changes and XPCOM components

In article <[email protected]>, Dan Mosedale wrote:
> Even if all components survive an ABI change, both Mozilla and some of
> the plugins link directly against libstdc++.  So right now, I've got a
> gcc 3.1 build on my disk which can't use the flash plugin, because
> Mozilla is linked against the gcc 3.1 version of libstdc++, and the
> plugin is expecting the name mangling of the old version.
> 
> That said, I think we should take a list of plugin developers and try
> to get rough consensus that we should bite the bullet and upgrade
> compilers, in large part because of the optimization wins we get can.

Hi Dan,
    I really think we should hold off on this.  It is going to create a
lot of confusion to have incompatable sets of plugins floating around the
net and thats going to generate a lot of support problems for the plugin
authors.  And the last thing we want is for mozilla to get a "difficult to
support" reputation.
    The last I heard (and admittedly its been several months) gcc3 generated
slower code than gcc 2.9X.  Thats expected to change, but it will take
time and I think we should wait until there is some clear advantage to
using gcc 3 before we push people in that direction.

    On a slightly related topic, will netscape 4.X plugins continue to work
on mozilla if we switch to gcc 3?  I think several of the plugins I commonly
use are really 4.X plugins (flash & realplayer).  I suspect most people are
in the same boat.  Breaking these would be really bad.

Thanks,

Jim