Path: csiph.com!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder3.hal-mli.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: Hans-Peter Diettrich Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: GCC is 25 years old today Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:03:01 +0200 Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 28 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <12-03-065@comp.compilers> References: <12-03-051@comp.compilers> <12-03-053@comp.compilers> <12-03-062@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com X-Trace: leila.iecc.com 1333089241 3727 64.57.183.58 (30 Mar 2012 06:34:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:34:01 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: GCC, history Posted-Date: 30 Mar 2012 02:34:01 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:532 Rui Maciel schrieb: > But GCC isn't the only free compiler out there, and yet no other > compiler, paid or free, managed to attain the same level of > popularity. Couldn't it be possible that GCC's success is owed to > some determining factor other than price? In former times it was common practice to use one compiler for development, and another one for production. The development compiler has to integrate nicely into the development system, with short turn-around times, and has to provide the best diagnostics possible. The production compiler instead has to provide the best optimization, while diagnostics and turn-around times are quite unimportant. > [I think it's fair to say that GCC was the first free compiler that > generated code competitive with commercial compilers. -John] Obviously it's more economic to maintain multiple code generators in a common compiler framework, instead of writing and maintaining an dedicated compiler for every target, as most isolated commercial or hobby compiler writers did. My experience with "highly optimizing" compilers, in detail MSC, sums up in "the new version ejects less NOPs than the preceding one". This may have changed nowadays, though... DoDi