Newsgroups: comp.arch Path: csiph.com!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!feeder.usenetexpress.com!feeder-in1.iad1.usenetexpress.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!kithrup.com!mrs From: mrs@kithrup.com (Mike Stump) Subject: Re: A right alternative to IEEE-754's format Message-ID: Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 18:53:50 GMT References: <0d4dc7f8-1819-43e5-8082-6ff7aee5f41b@googlegroups.com> <2018Apr1.144759@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ld. X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Lines: 38 Xref: csiph.com comp.arch:43935 In article , David Brown wrote: >If you were serious about this topic, and really felt that modern >compilers (with gcc at the forefront) are a problem, then you would be >trying to do something useful about it. Childish name-calling is not a >useful attitude - it just ensures that you (and folk like John Regehr) >get written off as eccentrics or fanatics rather than being taken seriously. The name calling, to a professional, doesn't matter any. It is usually just a sign of an unhappy user that isn't having his needs meet. In this case, reasonably, I think that is the case. We try and satisfy his needs by fixing his problem reports or explaining to him why he can't have what he wants when we can't. The links he quotes, include llvm explaining some needs that users would like, that they just can't have. This is called trying to reset expectations and is a useful way to try and satisfy users. I'm sorry, this blender can't cook food. You can stop screaming about it, because it does not now, nor will it ever have, a heating element; it's a blender. A good chef can be taught that a blender doesn't cook food and to not expect that, even if at one time they might have thought it should and were unhappy about it. They are insane, if they cannot move past the fact that a blender doesn't cook food. He is eccentric or fanatic only when he can't accept the world as it is and cannot accept when his needs can't be met. The standard answer in gcc land would be, we welcome your contribution. We invite everyone that doesn't have their needs met, to directly contribute their need to gcc and then gcc can then just meet their needs. That need once contributed to the testsuite, has a way of staying around for a long time, and even can move from gcc to other compilers, for example clang just because it is in the test suite. Now, for people that have no talent and/or time to contribute to gcc, but have the money, they can also have their needs met by merely contracting that need out. They can do this with both gcc and clang. For people with no talent, no time, and no money, well, they just have to make due with that comes their way and deal with what comes. If you want to know if he is a fanatic, just ask, can you accept the world as it is? He will say yes, or no.