Re: [Mingw-users] Re: not a toy

[Miroslav F. <cx...@nt...>]

> Why would you do complete rebuilds often? (I'm curious - I've only seen
people do complete rebuilds often where they had broken compilers and/or
broken build systems, but you might have some unusual requirement?)

    Like fixing and adjusting bugs in my base libraries ? I am working on
someting like Qt and sometimes I need to change things even in base
headers...

> 39000 header lines sounds like a lot. Does that mean far-reaching
dependencies? Is that what causes "complete" (or near

    No at all. There is almost no chance not to include "windows.h" and some
basic C libraries - these together count for 15000 lines. Rest are headers
for my classes.

> complete) rebuilds often? A long time ago I worked on some MSVC code that
used pre-compiled headers, and it appeard to require *all* headers to be
included via a single include file, which negated any benefit of precompiled
headers. Has this situation changed (or maybe they weren't being used
correctly in that project)?

    No, and in fact this is exactly what I do need. This the best way how to
manage headers in complex projects like this anyway (that said, I do not
want to begin each file with 100 #includes).

> Anyway, just to balance things up in case any gcc developers are
listening: I neither need nor want precompiled headers. I'd much rather see
the effort going into ANSI compliance and refined error messages from
template code. (In my experience precompiled headers, like template
repositories, tend to get in the way of build systems - they become too
complex to deal with in makefiles or equivalents and too complex to,
themselves, maintain.)

    Well, precompiled headers seem to work very nicely when implemented
properly. (10 times compilation speed up is real !). And when implemented
right (which is not a case for GC3.4 ufortunately), they work behind scene,
not affecting build process any way.

    Anyway, meanwhile I found a way how to tweak our build process to
simulate precompiled headers - I will tweak it to join files that include
same headers automatically. There are some catches (well, a lot of them),
but in the end I hope to gain desired effect.

Mirek