[GEM Development] GEM-32 - compiler notes

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

Shane G noted GCC support is a must. Well maybe supporting  
compilation with GCC is a must, but relying on GCC extensions and  
behaviour could be a Bad Thing. I've seen increasing feeling against  
GCC lately. (Anti-GCC feeling is rising in the open source camp!  
Sounds revolutionary doesn't it? :) ) I've seen LLVM welcomed not  
because it's anything special in its own right but just because it is  
an alternative to GCC! My favourite OS doesn't support GCC at all,  
nor could it ever do while keeping to its principles of simplicity  
and consistency.

I'm sure many who appreciate simplicity would appreciate being able  
to compile GEM with a simpler compiler. Someone will try TCC sooner  
or later, that's almost certain, TCC and GEM fall into more or less  
the same field.

TCC: http://bellard.org/tcc/

I don't know how much GEM code would need compiler-specific  
extensions, hopefully very little, and IMHO the less it needs the  
better.