🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1991Sep17.175920.21316@alphalpha.com> nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) writes:

>Minor side issue here.

>Despite common belief, gcc is by no means the best compiler for all platforms
>(and g++ even less so) - either in terms of stability or performance.  On a 68K
>machine that decision perhaps make sense, but certainly not on all platforms.

There is of course not a final word on compilers, but let me state my
experience as a quite simple user:
	My standard cc on DEC Ultrix has a buggy optimizer.
	The most used compiler on SCO Unix (Microsoft) is buggy too
	SUN's default cc seems ok.
	The natice cc on Interactive Unix (last time I used it) was buggy.
Apart from Microsoft the compiler, they are non-ansi. And Microsoft is
expensive. And I can of course buy SUN C, but look at the pricetag.
	Apart from that there is another big advantage:
		Same UI anywhere, same language anywhere.

If you are working on lots of different architectures, than having the same
compiler everywhere is as nice as having the same editor everywhere. If you
then add that it is reasonably cheap (you'll have to count your time of
course) and that it performs well, ... And the time you win when you do have
the same compiler everywhere, that you'll have to count too of course. And the
time you win when your favourite PD software will at least work with gcc -O.

And something even more important. If there *is* a bug in the compiler (and
it's really a bug) then there is no system so fast in repairing the bug as the
net. Just try to get your bugfixes from molochs like Microsoft.

So, the advantage is not having the rumoured "best compiler ever", but
compared to the default in a heterogenous environment, it is quite
understandable that those rumours exist.

>I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
>responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
>everyone else's.

At first glance: the first, at second: they kind of look equivalent to me.
-- 
Gerben Wierda
Phone: (+31) 2154 84415			Home: (+31) 85 516677
	"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."
	Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland".