Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-sdd!megatek!spot!hollen
From: hollen@spot.megatek.uucp (Dion Hollenbeck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: RFC:  MS C v. Lattice C
Message-ID: <341@megatek.UUCP>
Date: 29 Apr 88 02:40:50 GMT
References: <4330063@hpindda.HP.COM>
Sender: news@megatek.UUCP
Lines: 57

From article <4330063@hpindda.HP.COM>, by mintz@hpindda.HP.COM (Ken Mintz):
> Can someone offer some constructive views on MS C v. Lattice C:  is one
> better than the other; if so, why?  BTW, I don't intend to develop code
> for windows, nor do I indend to use windows myself.
> 

I am using Lattice C at work for some very sophisticated embedded system
development.  My company purchased it because it was the only compiler
warranteed by the manufacturer of SoftProbe 86 simulator (runs on a
SUN or VAX or PC - cannot say enough good things about Soft Probe and
SSI who makes it).  Lattice C is something else.  Calling it a toy is
not quite accurate, but closer than calling it a real-world compiler.
It has no switches to control optimization, no support for in-line
assembly and I have discovered numerous bugs (several of which were
fixed in the 3.24 release).  The worst bug (still not fixed and Lattice
is hemming and hawwing about even looking at it) occurs when asking
the compiler to include symbolic debug information including line
numbers, symbol names and symbol types.  In 75% of the source files
(I have about 20) it will generate object modules which are rejected
by the linker.  Unfortunately, the lack of symbol types cripples
emulators and simulators from being powerful and reduces me to 
calculating offsets into complex nested structures by hand instead
of being able to refer to 'foo->bar.zips.alt.boo'.

Lattice does support all the memory models and has adequate documentation.
Their standard libraries seem to be well written, but there are not
a lot of nifty extensions.

Also, I have the Microsoft 4.0 C compiler and it has lots of
features such as selective optimization, complete symbols and types,
etc.  Microsoft is notoriously bad about support as you may have 
gathered from postings in this group.  Their documentation is not
a whole lot better than Lattice.  Their attitude towards fixing bugs
is not that great.

We did not select MS C because at the time of purchase, it had only
been ported to SUN UNIX for only a couple of months and there were
next to no embedded system development tools.  Also, SSI would not
warranty it to work with SoftProbe (a feature which was critical
to the project, since the hardware would not be available to test
on and we could debug on the simulator without going to the hardware
until the last minute).

In summary, both compiler are adequate.  In my opinion, MS C is the
better choice of the two.  MS C generates vastly superior code
optimization and seems to be more full featured.  However, it you
are not doing heavy duty development the best bang for the buck is
the MIX POWER C which also has the most superior documentation for
a beginner.  As much as I like the CODEVIEW debugger system, MIX
beats it all to heck (BTW, Lattice has NO debugger).



	Dion Hollenbeck             (619) 455-5590 x2814
	Megatek Corporation, 9645 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA  92121

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