California, along with Major League Baseball, is among the institutions that have a policy of “Three Strikes and You are Out.”
I suggest the same rule should apply to compiler writers.
For example, I just tried to port some software that makes use of gcc, the standard Linux C compiler, only to get an error message about a problem with an option.
I then did “man gcc” to review the list of options. As best as I can tell, there are well over a hundred of them.
This is ridiculous. How can any person be expected to make meaningful use of such a superfluity of programming madness.
Let’s do the math. I once read there are about 2**80 atoms in the universe. If there are 100 options to gcc, then are there 2**100 ways of compiling a program, which is 10**20 more times options than there are atoms in the universe!.
If we assign one Richard Stallman to test each possibility, then we need at least 10**20 RMS’s just to test the path flow for options!
GCC Folks: Get your act together. If you can’t come up with a small, reasonable set of options, then I suggest you should leave the compiler game and let the grownups take over.
Four colors suffice to color a map. I’ll give you double that, so can you please cut the number of options down to 8?
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The estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is around 10^80, not 2^80.
Still a lot of compiler options, though.
And this is a problem……?:p
I’d agree that there are a huge number of options that no normal user would need. However I don’t think there are anything like 2^100 independent combinations as (a) some options imply others and (b) some are “bundles”. I think that 8’s a bit optimistic though (maybe 8-12 general user ones, and then a bunch of specialist things [e.g. running as a cross-compiler] that could be hidden in a separate man page).
P.S. This page renders abominably in Konqueror (3.5.7) as a column of links is superposed on the text.
Dave replies:
I agree that the option space is not as large as I first wrote. However, I believe any programmer has a duty to limit the number of program options to an absolute minimum. That is part of a good design.
To allow options that cover every possible case is a cop-out, asking the user to wade through a sea of options when they have better things to do.
For example, gcc has scores of -W options to specify which warnings should be issued. I would use a notion of level, such as “who cares, I just want to run it,” “common-sense,” ” “‘conservative” and “purist – tell me everything.”