🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov10.160940.5958@exu.ericsson.se> exuhag@exu.ericsson.se writes:
>Dan Odom writes:
>>Yes, it is.  Go write a compiler for Pascal.  Then write a compiler for
>>C++.  You'll see.
>
>But until Turbo came along, MS-DOS Pascal compilers were total
>dogs.

Well, sort of.  The competitors to Turbo in 1983 were compiled Pascals by
Microsoft and IBM (the same product, I thought), and an interpreted Pascal
by (if memory serves) P-systems.  The ads in Byte for Turbo (I still have a
copy somewhere) stressed that it:
 - Compiled much faster than IBM/Microsoft.
 - Ran much faster than P-systems.
 - Ran in less RAM / disk than either.
 - Was MUCH cheaper than either.

One of those "too good to be true" ads, but I figured for $49 I could take a
chance, and it WAS true.  (Still have Turbo Pascal 1.0 floppy, Ser #1027.)
Besides, I was talked into it by their EXCELLENT, free tech support.
(Apropos another discussion in this newsgroup.)

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE ......
Did you ever try a C compiler of the same era?  MUCH SLOWER than even IBM
Pascal in compiling. Much worse.
The biggest speed problem with IBM Pascal was not just compute speed,
but juggling the 3-4 floppies you needed for
a floppy-only machine -- which was most PCs back then.  Most of Turbo's
speed advantage came from doing the whole job in RAM.

The C compilers of the day also required floppy-juggling.  But you COULD
take a coffee break between handling floppies.

>What's troubling here is that people are blindly accepting
>the "fact" that C++ compilers _have_ to be slow.

Borland C++ runs REAL fast on my home machine; I have no complaints at all
about speed.  But that's because they haven't forgotten their roots. They
use as much extended memory as they can eat, and I've found that compile
speed is very sensitive to RAM (both extended and lower) available to
BC++.  They're STILL doing it by keeping as much as possible in core.
Evidence:
 - A home machine memory upgrade gave a manifold increase in compile speed.
   I went from 1Meg to 4Meg, giving almost a 10X speed gain.
 - My office machine, with even more extended memory but with less available
   space in the lower 640K, compiles fast enough for a while (about 1200
   lines at a clip), but then stops and waits for a while... an annoying
   while.  On a few occasions, such hiccups end with an "out of memory"
   fatal error.  I'll unload a TSR or two, and recompile successfully,
   and much faster.

Dave
---
Not associated with Borland, but a usually-satisfied customer.