Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!ames!olivea!oliveb!amiga!boing!dale From: dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: DICE vs GCC Message-ID: <966@boing.UUCP> Date: 6 Apr 91 16:29:05 GMT Article-I.D.: boing.966 References: <9104021420.AA10848@thunder.LakeheadU.Ca> <1991Apr4.034920.16298@marlin.jcu.edu.au> <1991Apr4.180217.19773@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <1991Apr5.030228.28756@marlin.jcu.edu.au> Reply-To: dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) Organization: Boing, Milpitas, Ca. Lines: 32 In article ben@epmooch.UUCP (Rev. Ben A. Mesander) writes: >>> Because I am doing things that just can't be done with SAS or Aztec. >>Why not? >Things like the X >window system sources hose up SAS/C, but GCC will compile them fine. Up until 5.04 there were too many bugs in SAS/C to compiler X source code, however after 5.04 became available we finally were able to ram the client source code through SAS/C. Compilers don't just get better by themselves. There are so many things that can go wrong and there are so many ways that programmers stretch the language. We first tried porting the client side of X11 to the Amiga with both Aztec<5.0 as well as Lattice < 5.0, absolutely hopeless. When 5.0 came out we got about 95% of the way there. But some things like offsetof macros were screwed. Some of these problems are easy to find because it compiler complains and gives up. However these bugs that we submitted as well as many others did get fixed so that 5.04 was finally up to the job. It did a good enough job so that at least the code compiled and would link. Now all we have to worry about are the subtle bugs that are just bogus code. Many of these have gotten fixed as well. But still Some of these exist in the 5.10a compiler. All we can do as companies with products on the market that depend on compilers is to help the companies find the bugs and hope they have timely fixes. SAS has proven to me that they support their product and that is one of the reasons we recommend SAS/C for people doing X11 programming on the Amiga. -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale