[m-dev.] Grade handling

[Peter Schachte]

On Mon, 20 Jul 1998, Thomas Charles CONWAY wrote:

> The mechanism for handling different grades of compilation seems to be
> rather unwieldy, and difficult to maintain. I propose to change the way
> we deal with grades as follows:
> 
> 	- A grade should be a string made up of `.' separated components.
> 	- Each component specifies some compilation feature.
> 	- Features can be given in any order.
> 	- The empty string corresponds to the current grade "none".

I agree the grade mechanism is unwieldy.  This seems like a really good
idea.

I think it would also be a good idea to allow the grade to be specified
multiple times, and construct the actual grade by composing the various
specifications.  e.g., ... --grade agc --grade asm_fast ....  This would be
handy for use in makefiles.  It would probably be a good idea to add
negative "grade components," too, e.g., 'notr' to specify no trailing.

I'm not sure how to handle conflicting specifications, though, e.g.,
--grade agc --grade gc.  Probably reporting an error would be best.


-Peter Schachte               | The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the
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