[cfe-dev] Parsing, pretty-printing, and compiling the result should work, right?

[Roberto Bagnara]

Chris Lattner wrote:
>> Point 2) is basically complete.  Full realization of point 1) is 
>> currently
>> impeded by a number of problems for which we have pending bug reports.
>> For those we are unsure whether it is best to:
>>
>> a) wait for a fix;
>> b) implement a workaround in the pretty-printer.
> 
> 
> This is a general problem with Open Source projects.  You're interested 
> in doing something that would be very valuable for Clang to do, however, 
> Clang isn't quite there yet.  Further, you are the first person to want 
> to do this, and you're hitting problems.
> 
> Unfortunately, clang is developed by volunteers, and most of them have 
> their own specific agenda that they prioritize.

Hi there,

thanks to all who responded.  Please note that we know how Open Source
and Free Software projects work, and my group is actually contributing
significant pieces of code to the community.  So we are all volunteers.

>  For example, mine is 
> "make clang a production quality C compiler sooner rather than later".  

Good.  But since you cannot compile what you cannot parse, our agendas
have a significant overlap: actually, mine is a strict subset of yours.
This was actually my argument when I convinced my group to use clang
("they certainly will want to correctly parse all the code out there").

> This means that you can't really "force" someone to fix a bug or 
> implement a feature that you're lacking.

Of course.

> Your options basically come 
> down to:
> 
> 1) fix it yourself.  The various issues you have identified would all be 
> great to fix in clang, so I'm sure that the patches would be welcome.

The problem is that we do not have the manpower to do that.  All the manpower
we have is invested in other (Free Software) projects.

> 2) pay someone to fix it.

ROTFL: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7215/full/455835b.html
Do you know that many italian universities will have serious troubles
paying salaries one year from now?  Really, this is not an option.

> 3) try to stir up interest in the problem, so that someone else feels 
> compelled to look into it.

For at least two bug reports, I really hope this will be the case
because I really do not think a workaround exist.

> 4) find a way to work around the problem.

We will do that for all the remaining problems.  This is actually a
tough decision for me: if 2749 and 3261 are not fixed in a reasonable
time frame we will have to drop clang and I will have wasted the
time of several people.
Cheers,

     Roberto

-- 
Prof. Roberto Bagnara
Computer Science Group
Department of Mathematics, University of Parma, Italy
http://www.cs.unipr.it/~bagnara/
mailto:bagnara at cs.unipr.it