Re: g95 as a system fortran compiler?

On Sun, 20 Dec 2009, b. f. wrote:
> The decision to remove the Fortran compiler from the base system was
> made long ago, and will probably not be reversed now.  There is no
> Fortran code in the base system, and Fortran is needed only by a
> minority of users.

With even popular scripting languages residing in ports, not the
base system, it really would be hard to argue for Fortran being
part of the system compiler.  That, and FreeBSD has been notorious
for letting the system compiler and toolchain rot (sorry, it's hard
to find a friendlier term), so users would not be served too well
by such a move, especially seeing how actively and quickly GCC
Fortran develops in contrast.  This level of agility is really
where our Ports Collection shines.

> Yes, it's unfortunate that the gcc maintainers discontinued support
> for a number of architectures.  But maybe someone will step forward
> and fix it?  Or llvm?  In the meantime, why don't you ask gerald_at_ to
> make the default Fortran compiler on ia64 the latest version of
> gfortran that will still work on that architecture?  You can do it
> yourself by making some small local patches to ports/Mk/bsd.gcc.mk,
> and to the relevant lang/gcc4X port, while you are waiting for him ...

Anton has been working with me and really has been trying to get 
(upstream) attention.  With FreeBSD being a niche OS and Itanium
going the way of the Alpha and the Dodo, this is not a healthy 
intersection, sadly, and nobody has stepped up yet to fix the
issue for real though some advice has been given. :-(

( http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=40959 )

Using different compiler versions on different architectures is
going to make other ports maintainers pretty unhappy campers and
would not see a lot of testing, so I would not recommend going
down that route, nor would I want to make ports more complicated
when that only benefits one or two users globally.

Gerald
-- 
Gerald (Jerry) Pfeifer   gerald_at_pfeifer.com   http://www.pfeifer.com/gerald/