Re: clang vs gcc 4.7

[Ivan Vučica]

On 4. 3. 2013., at 21:16, Wolfgang Lux <wolfgang.lux@gmail.com> wrote:

> Saying blocks are bloat sounds to me like saying automatic reference counting 
> is bloat because you can do the same with explicit retain/release calls.

*cough* Hm. Nope. :-)

ARC introduces C++-style "magic" into things that work in a C-style "obvious" 
way. Block, similarly, do "magic" with variables in function's scope. What 
magic? Large parts of STL, for example. Ability to override operators. Ability 
to very easily introduce ambiguousness e.g by providing overloads that accept 
both const char* and std::string. I could list many other things that I (and 
others) feel makes C++ a mess, but which are quite useful.

Anyway, I see uses for both ARC and blocks. Especially blocks. I can't get over 
their ugliness, however, and prefer using selector-based handling for all but 
simplest handlers. Do I like having blocks? Definitely. And ARC can help 
newcomers.

That doesn't mean I don't feel about them like some other people feel about 
dot-syntax of properties. Useful, but not  for me.


Back on-topic: Right now, for Objective-C, gcc's upside is its 
ubiquitousness... And that's about it. Maybe that changes in the future. For 
now, I'm willing to spend a LOT of time (and disk space) building Clang; if for 
no other reason, then because more new code will build with it.

Regards,

Ivan Vučica
via phone