Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!nrl-cmf!ukma!gatech!bloom-beacon!husc6!endor!singer
From: singer@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Benchmarking C Compilers (was Re: LightspeedC 3.0 Review (long))
Keywords: Lightspeed C, gcc, Dhrystones
Message-ID: <4998@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 21 Jul 88 23:37:01 GMT
References: <76000259@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <4990@husc6.harvard.edu> <3133@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <583@mailrus.cc.umich.edu>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: singer@endor.UUCP (Rich Siegel)
Organization: Symantec/THINK Technologies, Bedford, MA
Lines: 35

In article <583@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> shane@um.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker) writes:
>
>[So much discussion deleted you should thank me.]
>
	Thank you!!! :-)

>What all of you seem to be forgetting (or not realizing, or ignoring, or...)
>is that Lightspeed C is optimized for fast COMPILE.  In a compiler you 
>can have fast compilation or highly optimized code generation.  Not both.

	Since it's been announced, I can talk about it now... The upcoming
Lightspeed Pascal 2.0 generates *the* best code of the Mac-based Pascal
compilers, AND it compiles faster than version 1.0.

	There is this pervasive idea that to have good code you have to have
a slow compiler. That may be true if you're DEC and want to do 10 passes
and optimize out loop invariants and all that, but for simply "good" code
(efficient use of registers, for example), compile time is NOT
necessarily inversely related to code quality.

	LightspeedC 3.0 doesn't have a new code generator because there
wasn't time. However, I suspect that Mike will let no grass grow under 
his feet...

		--Rich




Rich Siegel
Quality Assurance Technician
THINK Technologies Division, Symantec Corp.
Internet: singer@endor.harvard.edu
UUCP: ..harvard!endor!singer
Phone: (617) 275-4800 x305