Re: math expressions (was: Re: Tail call elimination)

[Paul Smith]

On Mon, 2020-05-25 at 13:28 -0500, Pete Dietl wrote:
> Question about 64-bit, what happens when compiling make for a 32-bit
> system? I don’t think c90 has `stdint.h`... maybe there’s something
> in gnulib. Anyway, would we want to support 64 bit integers even on
> 32-bit platforms?

32bit platforms can support 64bit integers.  I see no reason to suggest
we shouldn't.  I would prefer to not make this platform dependent
because that will lead to all sorts of portability issues.

Regarding C99: it turns out that gnulib already requires C99 (at least
parts of it) and since we started incorporating gnulib in GNU make 4.3,
we have sort of "backed into" requiring it as well.

I haven't made an official statement on this because I haven't thought
clearly enough about it yet (just discovered it recently).


Gnulib frustrates me because although it purports to solve portability
issues, and does so admirably between different variations of POSIX
systems, it actually _exacerbates_ portability issues to non-POSIX
systems.  In order to build gnulib-enabled software you have to have a
POSIX portability layer (for example, a POSIX shell and set of POSIX
shell utilities), which is a big ask.

This really annoys me and keeps me on the fence about gnulib, and
prevents me from completely switching (for example, moving to modern
glob/fnmatch).  I've only pulled in some relatively simple elements so
far.

So... I'm not sure which way to fall on that.