Re: [PATCH] Various pages: SYNOPSIS: Use VLA syntax in function parameters

Joseph Myers
2022-11-12T01:10:55Z

On Fri, 11 Nov 2022, Martin Uecker via Gcc wrote:

> > Even a compiler extension requires the level of detail of specification
> > that you get with a WG14 paper (and the level of work on finding bugs in
> > that specification), to avoid the problem we've had before with too many
> > features added in GCC 2.x days where a poorly defined feature is "whatever
> > the compiler accepts".
>
> I think the effort needed to specify the feature correctly
> can be minimized by making the first version of the feature
> as simple as possible.

The version of constexpr in the current C2x working draft is more or less
as simple as possible. It also went through lots of revisions to get
there. I'm currently testing an implementation of C2x constexpr for GCC
13, and there are still several issues with the specification I found in
the implementation process, beyond those raised in WG14 discussions, for
which I'll need to raise NB comments to clarify things.

I think that illustrates that you need the several iterations on the
specification process, *and* making it as simple as possible, *and*
getting implementation experience, *and* the implementation experience
being with a close eye to what it implies for all the details in the
specification rather than just getting something vaguely functional but
not clearly specified.

--
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com