Re: [DISCUSS] Introducing Rust into the Git project

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> There are a number of issues for porting gcc (and Go). The list is fairly long, but the summary of what I encountered directly (on the last funded effort of 3) is:
> 1. There are C syntax constructs required to do anything useful (required for access to the OS API) on NonStop that are not in gcc. I can hand code the parser for that, but it would take time.
> 2. The Big Endian x86 architecture is weird to gcc and making that work is not easy.
> 3. There is no assembler on NonStop.
> 4. The ELF header is very different from standard.
> 5. The symbol table structure is radically different, so debugging would be (nearly) impossible or impractical. gdb was ported to account for the platform differences.
> 6. The linkage structure is similar but different from standard.
> 7. The external fixup structure is radically different.
> 8. The loader does not work the same way, so there are required sections of the ELF files on NonStop that are not generated by gcc.
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> There are more, but I just did not get to the point if hitting them. Part of my own issue is that I have expertise in parsing and semantic passes of compilers, but my code generation skills are not where I want them to be for taking on this effort. Our last funded attempt had a code generation expert and he gave up in frustration.
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> If I was hired on to do this, it might have a chance, but at an estimate (not mine) of 4-5 person years for a gcc port, best case, my $DAYJOB will not permit it.
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> If gcc could be ported to NonStop, it would solve so many problems. I have heard of numerous failed efforts beyond what was officially funded by various companies, so this is considered a high-risk project.