RE: [Mingw-users] Ioannis departure from this list.

[Randy W. S. <RandyS@ThePierianSpring.org>]

> -----Original Message----- From:
> min...@li...
> [mailto:min...@li...]On Behalf Of
> Sternbach, William [IT] Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 11:12 AM
> To: 'min...@li...' Subject: [Mingw-users] Ioannis
> departure from this list.
>
>
> I agree with Ioannis.
>
> I have reported issues with gcc 2.95.3 in the past, mainly that it can
> no longer compile the very important "Perl Compiler" source code which
> is written in "C" and is used by half of the websites on the internet.
>
> gcc 2.95.2 can compile it successfully. Someone tampering with the
> windows.h header file since gcc 2.95.2 caused a problem which prevents
> this huge "Perl Compiler" source code to compile. I still have been
> unable to use gcc 2.95.3 (let alone gcc 3.2) because of this bug.
>
> I send multiple Emails to this list about 6 months ago about this bug,
> but all of my requests were ignored.
>
> The owners of mingw need to take a more aggressive position to support
> Mingw gcc. They need to be more concerned with fixing every bug than
> to ignore the bugs. I know gcc is shareware, but the owner of Mingw
> needs to manage all bug reports better. He needs to make sure that all
> bugs are fixed (not ignored).
>
> I think Ioannis was upset because when he reported a bug in Mingw gcc
> that was important to him, the owners of Mingw spent more time telling
> him the bug wasn't important. What they should have done was spend
> that time trying to fix the bug.
>
> I enjoy using gcc 2.95.2, but I wish I could use the newer versions if
> this bug compiling the "Perl Source Code" could be fixed. But I don't
> even think anyone is even thinking about this bug anymore.
>
> What a shame.
>
> - Bill
>

This may be a little off-topic from the intent of your message, but
I'm curious as to what bug your referring to. I've successfully
compiled perl 5.6 with both gcc 2.95.3-6 and gcc 3.1, and perl 5.8
with gcc 2.95.3-6, gcc 3.1, gcc 3.2 (as well as msvc 6). I have
not run in to any bugs. The compiler emitted a few warnings, but
I saw no problems when investigating the source of the warnings.

The only warning I'm not sure about and have not had a chance to
investigate involves the STRUCT2PTR/STRUCT2RAWPTR macros. IRC, the
warning occured in perlhost.h and was something like
'Invalid pointer offset to POD member', but perl passed all tests,
and I have not experienced any problems. Since the functions where
the warning occured are pretty fundamental to the functioning of
perl on windows, I'm fairly certain I would have run into a
segfault if there were any real problem.

Randy