Re: [9fans] impressive

[Roman Shaposhnick <rvs@sun.com>]

On Tue, Apr 25, 2006 at 10:53:35PM -0600, Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> David Leimbach wrote:
> >The main reason that intel and other C compilers implement gcc
> >extensions is because there is a lot of software that relies on them,
> >like the linux kernel for instance.
>
> Yes, the standard question asked here when a company comes in with a
> whiz-bang C compiler is 'can you build a bootable the linux kernel'. The
> initial answer is always "no". It in the usual case remains "no". For
> those companies that care (there are not many -- in fact there is only
> one I can think of)

  We (myself included) are trying to make it two ;-)

  <shameless plug>
  http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio/linux
  </shameless plug>

> it takes several years before the answer is "yes".

  The real problem is that its not just gcc compatibility, but rather
  gccX.Y compatibility. These guys are wild when it come to things like
  __asm__ specificators and such. In fact, Intel's dude I met at SC05
  was really proud that their compiler is more compatible with gcc
  than gcc itself. After all, icc has a gcc ABI switch ;-)

Thanks,
Roman.