Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utastro!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: Aghast at the Quality? (GNU C v. Greenhills v. PCC)
Message-ID: <16094@bigtex.cactus.org>
Date: 18 Apr 89 13:22:08 GMT
References: <237@egsner.UUCP> <4178@stiatl.UUCP> <10317@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <623@eecea.eece.ksu.edu> <3863@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Institute of Applied Cosmology, Austin TX
Lines: 26

In <3863@ficc.uu.net>, peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) wrote:

> [...] Depends on what you mean by 'higher quality'.

"higher quality" means that the compiler generates code that works
more correctly (in this case).  GNU generates more correct code in the
optimizer than PCC does.  The result also happens to be smaller and
faster, though the compiler itself is considerably bigger and slower.

If one defines "higher quality" as meaning compiles faster, and
generates smaller and faster code, then Greenhills probably wins (at
least the version that uPort distributed with 3.0e).  Of course, I
had real trouble executing the output of that compiler.  I also don't
believe this to be nearly as useful as definition of "higher quality"
as the correctness definition.

> [...] If it won't at least run with a mere ("mere"!) 2 Megabytes of
> RAM, which is damned likely considering how much RAM gcc requires, I'd
> hardly call it an improvement.

Depends on the definition of quality, and the importance of the
relationship between the semantics of the C source and the behavior of
the binary upon execution.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen          james@bigtex.cactus.org   "Live Free or Die"
DCC Corporation     9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759         512-338-8789