[fpc-devel] Blackfin support

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Hans-Peter Diettrich said:
> > I don't think we ever going to give an up front carte blanche for a massive
> > rewrite to go into trunk. That is simply not sane.
> 
> ACK. I'm more concerned about work that is blacklisted for some reason.

One reason the more to phase and modularize your efforts. It is less all or
nothing.

As far as the blacklisting goes. There is only one way to counter
skepticism. Show the goods, and it better be good. 

Core is not unreasonable (*), but it will take more than simply pointing at some
totally out of sync, totally overhauled branch, and saying "done".

Free Pascal is not a one way show, and that means cooperation and
communication. People's opionions differ.
 
> > A subsmission will always be judged on performance and maintainability
> > before being admitted.
> > 
> > If this bothers you, try to find smart ways to phase the changes, and limit
> > yourself to a few things at a time, and don't try to speedoptimize I/O, change
> > parser, allow multiple frontends etc, all at the same time.
> 
> Just this is hard to obey, when I see so many details that could be 
> improved.

> Will it do harm when I create more than one branch, e.g. one for general 
> optimizations? Can other people contribute to such an branch as well?

Keep in mind that running many branches long term will only increase the
amount of management to keep them in sync, makes it more difficult to merge
the finished results back etc.

Focus your efforts, on as small phases as possible. 

And don't ever consider other people helping you in your planning, since it
will nearly always be less than expected.

(*) well except me obviously, but I won't be reviewing compiler submissions,
so it is easier for me to say this all.