"Go" has added a cat amongst the pigeons :-) I'm a language aficionado and could not resist finding out more, but what I found turned out to be relevant to me in additional ways: no one has pointed out that the go toolchain is based on kenCC and produces Linux-elf executables.
Given the addition of this toolchain, one wonders how far we are from being able to port all the P9 compilers to Linux and consequently to all Posix platforms. My beef is that I have a wide choice of cross- and native toolchains with which to port Plan 9 to a MIPS platform (LSB), but I really wish I could settle on something I am much more comfortable and familiar with. Considering how readily p9p ported to the MIPS platform (the outstanding issue that stops it from being submitted for inclusion in the release is my lack of understanding of the MIPS-64/MIPS-32 details, regarding the unused getcallerpc() - sigh!) it seems to me that adding MIPS support to go should not be hard. My grasp of Linux and ELF, as well as the P9 toolchain, is too flimsy to embark on this alone, but if anybody wants me to complete any task for which the documentation isn't too obscure, I'd love to help. My hope is that this will help me understand the underlying issues better and help me progress with my own porting project. Porting go both to Plan 9 and to Linux-MIPSEL looms high on my list of immediate interests, feel free to contact me offline if you believe I can assist with these. ++L
