> I must admit I don't understand the upside. I've always thought of > plugins as something proprietary programs need because their source > isn't open. > > In my view, plugins will bitrot quickly as GCC's interface changes; and > they won't even help with the learning curve - does anyone believe for a > second you won't have to understand compiler internals to write a plugin?
I agree. I don't understand the upside either, for the same reasons. If I want to test some piece of code in the compiler, I don't have to bootstrap with or without plugins (unless I need to for testing purposes). The only difference is how I link, which seems a completely trivial distinction to me.
