[arch-projects] Proposal for additional gcc packages

[Jason Chu]

This is something I've been kicking around for a bit.  Having other gcc
packages like gcc-f77 and gcc-java would be helpful, 1) to shut people like
this up (http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=6376) and 2) for people
who actually need a f77 compiler (or a java compiler or whatever).

My idea goes something like this.  Don't touch the gcc package.  Instead,
make a similar PKGBUILD that just compiles the additional languages.
Compare that package's file list to the gcc package's file list and cull
out the duplicates.

As long as the existing gcc package doesn't store a list of compiled
languages, then it should work.

I've already built a gcc-f77 package based around this idea and gcc-java
will soon follow.  I do lack the skills to properly test the gcc-f77
package, though it is available here:
http://xentac.net/~jchu/gcc-f77-3.4.1-2.pkg.tar.gz 

The way I've explained it so far, you may be wondering about gcc upgrades.
The gcc-f77 package depends on gcc=$pkgver, so if gcc is upgraded before
gcc-f77, pacman will complain.  In that way, you'll never have conflicting
package versions installed at the same time.

The only drawback to this approach that I've found is that you compile gcc
multiple times.  The only solution to that is make a method to build
multiple packages from one PKGBUILD.  This goes against the KISS design
philosophy and would break a lot of stuff for only a few benefits (a few
packages).

Jason

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