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From: dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Looking for GOOD optimizing compilers for MS-DOS
Message-ID: <1541@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Date: 20 Feb 90 18:25:36 GMT
References: <9311@portia.Stanford.EDU>
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Reply-To: dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
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(I tried to mail this, but it bounced. I hope it's of some general interest.)

In article <9311@portia.Stanford.EDU> dhinds@portia.Stanford.EDU (David Hinds) writes:
>
>    I'm looking for a highly optimizing Pascal or Modula-2 compiler for
>MS-DOS.  The ability to generate 80386 code would be a major advantage.
>What are the best products available?  Cost is a factor, but I'm willing
>to spend more for something really good.  I have Turbo-Pascal 5.5, which
>doesn't produce the quality of code I'm interested in.

I don't know what the competition is like, but would suggest that you
can probably do as well as an optimizing compiler by using a profiler
(TurboPower sells TP specific ones, or you can use a general purpose
one), and rewriting the critical sections in assembler.  Certainly more
work, certainly means that you won't be able to easily port your
program to any other machine, but a much cheaper alternative than someone's
low-volume compiler.  TP is so dominant in the PC Pascal market that
it's probably been better debugged than anyone else's compiler, and better
support from a larger user group is available.

These comments apply only to Pascal.  I know even less about M2 compilers
than I know about non-TP Pascal compilers.

Duncan Murdoch