Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: bet@orion.mc.duke.edu (Bennett Todd)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: 3rd party compilers for Sun-3
Keywords: Software
Message-ID: <8903151620.AA26645@orion.mc.duke.edu>
Date: 3 Apr 89 18:58:04 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 27
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Wed, 15 Mar 89 11:20:31 EST
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 220, message 4 of 16

I can strongly recommend GCC and G++ for the Sun. I use them as production
compilers, though they are officially still in beta test.  Both have bugs
remaining that show up in the most demanding applications; however, I tend
to write reasonably well-structured code with modest size modules, and I
haven't seen a compiler bug from either compiler in several versions. GCC
is a portable, retargetable, highly optimizing C compiler. It supports
both old-style C (if you specify '-traditional' it accepts almost
identically the same language as Reiser's cpp + Johnson's pcc) and X3J11
DP-ANS C. With all the optional warnings turned on I find it more
effective at preening code for validity than lint. Inclusion of
information for debugging (-g) doesn't conflict with optimization (-O),
unlike pcc (though single-stepping through optimized code is sometimes
amusing; variables which have been optimized out of existance can't have
their values displayed, sometimes code flow hops about somewhat
disconcertingly due to code rearrangement). Since I am relatively
unconcerned with executable size, I install all programs compiled with '-O
-g'. That make core dumps debuggable, and I can reach out and attach to
running programs if they get wedged (though that sort of problem is not
happening at all frequently, between ANSI function prototype checking and
the other consistency checks that GCC performs at compile time, and the
run-time checking that my libbent performs on library and system calls).

GCC can be FTP-ed from prep.ai.mit.edu, as well as uunet.uu.net and
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu. Tut also has an open UUCP server.

-Bennett
bet@orion.mc.duke.edu