Re: C++ draft

[Tom Tromey <tromey at redhat dot com>]

Yao> In your concrete plan, IIUC, your plan is about converting GDB to C++
Yao> *partially*, instead of re-write GDB *completely*.  Is that
Yao> correct?

Yes.  I don't think a complete rewrite is either practical or advisable.
Instead I think an incremental approach is best.

Now, one possible criticism is that such incremental changes often peter
out.  And this is definitely a possible problem -- after exceptions and
python reference counting, what do we care enough about to transform?  I
mean, it is easy to think of areas that can be C++-ified, but are the
benefits enough to justify the work?  Would we be better off just
writing GCC plugins to check our changes?  I tend to think the benefits
are worth the cost, but it is hard to know this with any certainty.

Yao> For example, I don't anything in your plan about converting *-tdep.c
Yao> stuff into C++.   Is it in your plan or we plan to leave them as they
Yao> are now?

Leave them.

Yao> Do we plan to move gdbserver to C++?  I think no, because [...]

I agree.

Yao> I don't think C and C++ co-existance is a problem, or, your plan is
Yao> about "make good use of C++ to replace some bad and error-prone stuffs
Yao> in GDB, and keep the rest of GDB as it is".  Is it right?

Yes.

Yao> Just want to know clearly what GDB will be after your plan is performed.

I think we will always have parts in C.  At the very least BFD, and if
you push forward on the gdbserver library project, then the shared bits
there as well.

Tom