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From: vaughan@mcc.com (Paul Vaughan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,gnu.g++.help
Subject: Re: GNU g++ not ready for anything at all. (WRONG!)
Keywords: Just say no.
Message-ID: <14775@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM>
Date: 15 Jan 91 15:52:36 GMT
References: <1991Jan10.202317.161@ee.ualberta.ca> <16008@ogicse.ogi.edu> <1991Jan15.014335.13365@cs.ucla.edu>
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Reply-To: vaughan@mcc.com (Paul Vaughan)
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In-reply-to: rjc@cs.ucla.edu (Robert Collins)


   From: rjc@cs.ucla.edu (Robert Collins)
   In article <16008@ogicse.ogi.edu> maxwebb@ogicse.ogi.edu (Max G. Webb) writes:
   >This may not be an appropriate message; oh well...

   My experience with g++ has been very different.

   >Just as a data point for everybody out there deciding whether
   >to use g++: Last semester I wrote a neural net simulator in g++;
   >I already had some experience in c++ (AT&Ts version), and in
   >other OOPL's, and have been a programmer since '78.

   I have used g++ for a couple of years now, and have spewed out
   over 100,000 lines of g++ code.

   >My impression was that the bugginess of the implementation has
   >*DOUBLED* my implementation time. Recent releases (37.1) only
   >seem to add to my work, by failing to compile code that used to work.

   While I have encountered numerous bugs in various versions of
   g++, my coding time was rarely affected very much.  In general,
   Michael's support has been incredible.  In critical cases, he
   has sent me a patch within a day (more than once in about 15
   minutes---at 2am!).  Also, Michael was very responsive to my
   critical need for named return values.

. . .

   I am a very satisfied g++ customer.  It has not wasted my time,
   I have a full head of hair (a little gray, but that is due to the
   women in my life--past and present, not g++ :-).  It has not
   caused me to lose my cool, and has been surprising painless.

I can believe both stories. I've also used g++ for about 2 years and
work with a program with about 100,000 lines. G++ definitely wasted a
lot of our time, mostly through bugs in multiple inheritance. On the
other hand Tiemann definitely did provide rather awesome support. My
impression is that both properties have changed significantly. There
are a lot fewer bugs (but there are still bugs) and support is less
forthcoming unless you pay for it. Also, g++ changes pretty rapidly,
there should be a 2.0 version (don't ask me when, but I know it's in
the making) that will radically change the quality issue. If you're
choosing a c++ compiler, I'd say the biggest consideration is the
debugger.  Get one that has a debugger you can use TODAY. Worry about
other issues when the time comes. I don't have experience with any
other c++ debugger, but I'd rate gdb as marginal to poor. The
situation we're in at the moment makes it almost totally unusable.


 Paul Vaughan, MCC CAD Program | ARPA: vaughan@mcc.com | Phone: [512] 338-3639
 Box 200195, Austin, TX 78720  | UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cadillac!vaughan
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