review of gcc in dr. dobbs, oct ed.
Burgess Meredith
Review of 7 c compilers in dr. dobbs, they say
about gcc:
'GCC has the best language support, which is
commensurate with its having the widest
collaboration of any open-source (and
probably commercial as well) compiler in the
business. Howeve, this may also account for
its poor efficiency characteristics. On my
tested scenarios, it proved to be the
slowest compiler, and produced the slowest
and fattest code.'
So by being the most 'standard' the trade off
is lower efficiency and slowness.
Bob Tennent
I don't have access to the article but there seems to be some confusion
here. What is most impressive about GCC is the variety of architectures
supported. And 'standard' in the context of a compiler refers to how
well it supports the relevant language standard, which shouldn't have
much effect on efficiency of generated code or slowness.
In compilers, one sees a tradeoff between efficiency of generated code
and efficiency of code generation. I would be very surprised if GCC were
worst at both (at any -O setting).
Peter
Assuming that the findings are an appropriate comparison. The key
question is does it compile a small and efficient kernel? That is the
heart of the matter.
So what - hardware is cheap enough.
Again horses for courses.
The whole gcc suite is within the reach of all. An equivalent
commercial suite would be in the five figure range (taking into
account its cross platform capabilities).
Kingbarry2000
news:3f8d937...@news.paradise.net.nz...
> On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:14:24 GMT, "Burgess Meredith"
> <jab...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >Review of 7 c compilers in dr. dobbs, they say
> >about gcc:
> >
> >'GCC has the best language support, which is
> >commensurate with its having the widest
> >collaboration of any open-source (and
> >probably commercial as well) compiler in the
> >business. Howeve, this may also account for
> >its poor efficiency characteristics. On my
> >tested scenarios, it proved to be the
> >slowest compiler, and produced the slowest
> >and fattest code.'
> >
> >So by being the most 'standard' the trade off
> >is lower efficiency and slowness.
>
> Assuming that the findings are an appropriate comparison. The key
> question is does it compile a small and efficient kernel? That is the
> heart of the matter.
Bingo! And that answer woul be : No
>
> So what - hardware is cheap enough.
? Most of the people here would disagree ?
>
> Again horses for courses.
>
> The whole gcc suite is within the reach of all. An equivalent
> commercial suite would be in the five figure range (taking into
> account its cross platform capabilities).
--
I work for SUTI, an offshoot of SETI.
( Search for Usenet Terrestrial Intelligence )
Its horses, all the way down.
Peter
<kingbar...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Assuming that the findings are an appropriate comparison. The key
>> question is does it compile a small and efficient kernel? That is the
>> heart of the matter.
>
>Bingo! And that answer woul be : No
Not really a problem - see below.
>
>>
>> So what - hardware is cheap enough.
>
>? Most of the people here would disagree ?
Serious users look for security, stability and flexibility.
Efficiency is now secondary, the extra cost of hardware needed to
compensate for lack of effeciency is not significant enough to shun
gcc. Games users may see things differently.
>
>>
>> Again horses for courses.
>>
>> The whole gcc suite is within the reach of all. An equivalent
>> commercial suite would be in the five figure range (taking into
>> account its cross platform capabilities).
>
<stony silence from kingbarry> </stony silence from king barry>
The lack of a response regarding gcc accessibilty is the most
telling part of his overall response.
Kingbarry2000
You think I am trying to trash GCC ?
Nothing I said was trashing GCC.
GCC is a great compiler, and I have used it - mostly at IBM.
I have no big chip(s) on my shoulder ( have two pins in my left one from
hockey - but that is another story ) re: Linux, RH, GCC, FSF, whatever.
I am a geek, and software is software. Some good, some bad.
But I use MS / Borland compilers on windows because they are specialized /
targeted at that OS.
--
I work for SUTI, an offshoot of SETI.
( Search for Usenet Terrestrial Intelligence )
Its generics, all the way down.
Russ Lyttle
I noticed that they didn't build for the Power PC or Sparc or Sharc or ...
Just Windows.
--
Russ Lyttle
lyttlecatearthlink.net
at = @