Re: GCC is 25 years old today

From	Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.net>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: GCC is 25 years old today
Date	2012-03-29 09:17 -0500
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<12-03-067@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	<12-03-051@comp.compilers> <12-03-053@comp.compilers> <12-03-062@comp.compilers>

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>>> In your views, what has been GCC's main contribution to the world of
>>> compilers?
>>
>> maybe, being free.
>
> 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?

GCC is effectively required for the Linux kernel, among other things,
which creates a surprisingly effective lock-in market considering only
free software is involved :-). Once GCC was established, it means that
any serious new compiler would have to both include most of GCC's
extensions, mirror its command line (to insert itself into most build
scripts easily), and get similar performance to be taken
seriously--which amounts to a very tall order. Of course, in the past
few years, the Clang/LLVM infrastructure has progressed well enough to
be able to tackle the hegemony of GCC.

--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

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GCC is 25 years old today Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-03-22 22:29 +0000
  Re: GCC is 25 years old today BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-24 08:44 -0700
    Re: GCC is 25 years old today "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-03-26 11:00 +0200
      Re: GCC is 25 years old today compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-03-27 09:27 +0000
        Re: GCC is 25 years old today "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-03-28 16:38 +0200
          Re: GCC is 25 years old today compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-03-29 12:30 +0000
            Re: GCC is 25 years old today "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-03-30 09:58 +0200
            Re: GCC is 25 years old today Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de> - 2012-04-12 15:07 +0200
        Re: GCC is 25 years old today BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-28 13:46 -0700
    Re: GCC is 25 years old today glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-03-28 13:33 +0000
    Re: GCC is 25 years old today Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-03-28 16:47 +0100
      Re: GCC is 25 years old today Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2012-03-29 15:03 +0200
      Re: GCC is 25 years old today Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.net> - 2012-03-29 09:17 -0500
        Re: GCC is 25 years old today BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-30 14:58 -0700
      Re: GCC is 25 years old today BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-29 09:48 -0700
        Re: GCC is 25 years old today Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2012-03-30 10:58 +0200
          Re: GCC is 25 years old today BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-30 13:33 -0700
            Re: target platforms and .NET, was GCC is 25 years old today BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-31 13:08 -0700
      Re: GCC is 25 years old today anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-03-31 14:02 +0000
        Re: GCC is 25 years old today mev <mevermeulen@gmail.com> - 2012-04-01 06:20 -0700
      Re: GCC is 25 years old today jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2012-04-01 01:05 +0000
  Re: GCC is 25 years old today Marco <prenom_nomus@yahoo.com> - 2012-04-01 08:24 -0700

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