Re: [DISCUSS] Introducing Rust into the Git project

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Jan 11, 2024, 02:55 UTC
Message-ID: <ZZ9YrYvW_L9A02aI@tapette.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <007c01da4420$10a7b700$31f72500$@nexbridge.com>

On 2024-01-10 at 23:52:21, rsbecker@nexbridge.com wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Unfortunately, none of the compiler frontends listed previously can be
> built for NonStop. These appear to all require gcc either directly or
> transitively, which cannot be ported to NonStop. I do not expect this
> to change any time soon - and is outside of my control anyway. An
> attempt was made to port Rust but it did not succeed primarily because
> of that dependency.

Can you tell us what the technical limitations are that prevent GCC from being ported so we can understand better? I know LLVM doesn't support ia64, which you do support, but GCC is very likely the most portable compiler on the planet and supports architectures and OSes I've never otherwise heard of.

I strongly suspect that if GCC did end up on NonStop, Rust would be able to be ported, too, and you'd also get access to gccgo, which would make Git LFS possible on NonStop as well[0].

I'm not capable of porting GCC, but I have done some portability work in the Rust ecosystem, and I'd be willing to provide context and some assistance (within my time and capabilities) to help get Rust working on NonStop if you want.

[0] For the record, as a maintainer of Git LFS, I'm happy to accept portability patches for virtually any OS.

-- 
brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA