Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 00:52:02 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: cracauer@cons.org, Matthew.Thyer@dsto.defence.gov.au, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG, ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: xlock: caught signal 8 while running galaxy mode. Message-ID: <199710060052.RAA00390@usr05.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <22019.875898150@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Oct 3, 97 10:02:30 am
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> > There are bugs in our gcc that make relying on FP exceptions handled > > right dangerous and Bruce Evans felt it is better to through the > > signal, so that people get aware of the problem. > > > > With all respect to Bruce, I'm still conviced that we should switch to > > default to set exceptional values and not signal the process. Our gcc > > isn't that much worse than NetBSD's and Linux and those systems > > obviously didn't get into trouble, at least not my my applications. > > You're not alone in this point of view, but even several of us arguing > for years with Bruce on this issue has not been enough to sway him > from the point of view that purity exceeds the value of functionality > here. :-) It seems to me that the soloution would be to fix the gcc bugs so that there is no need to throw the signal. This would probably do more to convince Bruce than any amount of arguing. Normally, I think that "anything that works is better than anything which doesn't". Here, though, we must decide whether it is the app or the math which is not working. I vote for the app. Until the gcc stuff have been fixed, I agree with Bruce. Since I don't know what Bruce will say, I can't really speak for whether I'd agree with him after it's fixed. 8-). This seems to me to be very similar to the "unmap page zero" argument, which had proponents on both sides. I thinkwe can agree that, in the long run, the right decision was made, even though at the time it was looking like a "purity vs. functionality" argument (Note: on the unmap issue, I still have one reservation regarding ABI emulation of systems which map the page on fault, like SVR4/UnixWare/Solaris). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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