Re: Move GDB to C++ ?

[Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink dot net>]

Nick Roberts wrote:
>  > It's certainly an approach worth thinking about. Presumably the point of 
>  > working in a different directory is that the code might be expected to 
>  > be broken or nonportable for a period of time, but when that happens you 
>  > can run afoul of limited commitment levels, with people only able to 
>  > work on gdbxx when they don't have regular gdb tasks. If everyone is 
>  > forced into the same straitj^Wsource tree, dealing with mid-transition 
>  > brokenness is (usually :-) ) justifiable as part of the job.
>
> Mid-transition brokenness only seems justifiable if there is unanimous
> agreement that the transition is desirable.  Imposing a change on people who
> may not want it and then telling them that have to put up with the ensuing
> brokeness, or fix it, seems quite unreasonable, expecially to those who have
> contributed to it's previous state.
>
>   
Yes, I think one should have general agreement on the desirability of a 
transition in the first place. Everyone needs to be able to justify that 
additional overhead both in their own minds, and to colleagues, 
employers, etc. To me that's one of the strengths of open-source 
projects, is that we can mutually agree to undergo some temporary pain 
in order to modernize or extend the software, whereas proprietary 
projects often become fossilized because worthwhile improvements can't 
be proven to increase profits immediately.

Stan