Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ncar!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!sco!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: gcc vs. commercial C compiler (Sun's)
Message-ID: <2184@scolex.sco.COM>
Date: 29 Jan 89 23:36:12 GMT
References: <286@proton.UUCP>
Reply-To: rms@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 26

In article <286@proton.UUCP> proton!nusbaum@ucrmath.ucr.edu (R. James Nusbaum) writes:
>Does anyone have any thoughts on the use of gcc (a relatively new
>compiler as compilers go) vs. using Sun's C compiler in a medical
>software project where software failure could cause loss of life?

I forwarded this to Richard Stallman, and he asked me to post this in reply:

---- Begin rms.repl ----
I don't think that a 20% performance difference would outweight
any danger of unreliability in software that people's lives depend on.

GCC is probably still somewhat less reliable than the Sun C compiler.
However, we are making reliability a high priority now, and I hope
this will cease to be so in the next few versions.
---- End rms.repl ----

My, personal, opinion would be to try both (unless you had to pay for the
Sun compiler, in which case you should decide *before* you get it), and try
running reliability tests on it.  Gcc *is* buggy, true, but Sun doesn't let
me look at their bug reports (you know, the ones that are now into 32-bits
for identification?), so I can't compare it from that point.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
seanf@sco.UUCP   |  the master calls a butterfly."  -- Richard Bach
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.