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From: jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: Re: Best C Compiler
Keywords: Compilers
Message-ID: <10035@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 22 Mar 90 09:15:44 GMT
References: <1990Mar19.175316.16898@Octopus.COM> <3130@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <1990Mar20.163453.29787@Octopus.COM> <126@qmsseq.imagen.com>
Reply-To: jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen)
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester ,MA
Lines: 26

In article <126@qmsseq.imagen.com> pipkins@qmsseq.UUCP (Jeff Pipkins) writes:
>I'd like to hear from someone who has used the WATCOM C compiler!

So would I.  Although... I read a review and the conclusion was high C was
better for 386.

>MY TWO BITS' WORTH:

I primarily use turbo C and occasionally use zortech C.  I _of_course_ agree
with what you say about microsoft... :) but with turbo C I have to add
something.  FIrst of all, yes what you say about Borland is probably true. 
Luckily I havn't yet had to deal with their customer support (I'm not even
registered).  However, Turbo C really does compile 3 times faster than most
others.  For that technical reason alone I prefer it.  My guess is that the
primary reason why it's faster is the I/O...  I think it would probably be
very easy for other compiler writers to make their compilers fast just by
using 64K buffers.  Second, it includes features which allow me to avoid
Intel/Microsoft assembly language.  The 8088 could have a nice assembler...
it's really not that bad of a processor for writing assembly but MASM, TASM
and even A86 are so completely braindamaged that anything to help me avoid
using them is quite welcome.  Why must I use assembly in my C programs? 
Because I have yet to see a decent C library (like how about a farread call?)
and MSDOS is stupid.
-- 
            "Come on Duke, lets do those crimes" - Debbie
"Yeah... Yeah, lets go get sushi... and not pay" - Duke