Re: GCC is 25 years old today

From	Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: GCC is 25 years old today
Date	2012-03-30 10:58 +0200
Organization	Compilers Central
Message-ID	<12-03-069@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	<12-03-051@comp.compilers> <12-03-053@comp.compilers> <12-03-062@comp.compilers> <12-03-068@comp.compilers>

Show all headers | View raw

BGB schrieb:

> more recently, I have ended up mostly using MSVC, mostly because:
> it was also freely available (via the Platform SDK);
> it supported some features which at the time GCC didn't support (namely,
> Win64).

IMO GCC and Windows is a special case, because the GNU developers
never really wanted to support this (non-free non-POSIX) platform.
Cygwin and MinGW do not fully support the WinAPI, and lack further
development support. Most GNU projects, including the development
tools and libraries, do not build on Windows, they mostly fail already
in ./configure. In the context of this group it should be mentioned
that a bunch of *languages* are involved in building GCC/GNU projects,
even if these languages are mostly interpreted, not compiled. See
shell scripts, make and auto... extensions, M4 and whatever else is
required or suggested by the FSF.

IMO nowadays the bare compiler is the least important part, WRT the
choice of a *development system*. Languages are another issue: you'll
hardly find two C++ compilers which are ABI compatible, not to mention
compatibility with other OO languages.

Java went an radically different way WRT portable code, eliminating OS
dependencies in the VM instead of fragile adaptation in source code
and libraries. This approach makes it much easier to develop
applications for multiple platforms, including multiple POSIX flavors.
I may be wrong here, but IMO the availability of Linux applications
depends heavily on the goodwill of the platform maintainers, which
have to make every single project compile, build and run on their
specific platform. Even if this is not a compiler issue, it suggests
to properly consider the role of an compiler in the entire development
process.

DoDi

Back to comp.compilers | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

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

csiph-web