Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Lattice C++ Experiences?
Message-ID: <6950@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 22 May 89 22:01:05 GMT
References: <4052@druwy.ATT.COM>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 61

in article <4052@druwy.ATT.COM>, mab@druwy.ATT.COM (Alan Bland) says:

> Lattice has recently reduced the price of C++, so now it is getting closer
> to something that I can afford.  Does anybody have any experiences with
> Lattice C++ that they would like to share?  In particular:

> 	- How slow is the cfront translation step compared to the compile step?

I'd guess about the same length; eg, your compile time about doubles.  I'm 
working on real fast machines, though, where it's acceptably fast.  Don't know
if I'd like it on a plain Amiga...

> 	- How good are the supplied class libraries?

They vary.  You can do things like this:

	NewWindow nw = {...};
	Window *win = new Window(&nw);
	Console *con = new Console(win);

	*con << "Hello World!\n";
	Wait(100);

	delete con;
	delete win;

> 	- How much larger are the executable files compared to equivalent
> 	  C programs?

They don't seem to be that much larger.  The major memory requirement is
for compile time operation.  I'd recommend about 2 megs of memory for a
comfortable system.

> 	- Have you been hit by any major bugs or surprises?

It's reasonably easy to crash in cfront; it chokes on some rather simple
syntax errors, though the crashes go down significantly if you give it
a big stack (I usually give it 100k, though I imagine that's overkill).

> 	- Will it work with Lattice C 5.02?

Some folks are using it that way.  Lattice posted a new "CC" front end on
bix awhile back to use 5.02, but unfortunately, it had a couple bugs.  So
I decided to wait for the fixed version.  5.02 has some specific hooks
for C++, the 5.02 linker is a superset of the C++ linker, etc.  Also,
with the 5.02 LC1 and LC2 passes as resident code modules, I suspect that
compile time goes down noticably.

> Since I already use C++ at work, I don't need to hear your experiences
> with the language itself, just the environment on the Amiga.

I'm overall pretty happy with it.  I'd like a few less deadly bugs in cfront,
and support for C++ in CodePRobe.  But after using C++, I'm never overly
anexious to go back to plain C.

> -- Alan Bland

-- 
Dave Haynie  "The 32 Bit Guy"     Commodore-Amiga  "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
              Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession