Re: [9fans] gcc on plan9

["David Leimbach" <leimy2k@gmail.com>]

On 6/7/06, geoff@collyer.net <geoff@collyer.net> wrote:
> I use f2c when I need to compile Fortran (or, more likely, Ratfor).
> Have GNU extended Fortran too?  Or do you need to compile programs
> that make use of features added to Fortran by later standards (though
> I'm not sure that GNU Fortran will help here)?

GNU Fortran is actually fairly well caught up with F95 at least.  I've
seen traffic on the apple scitech list saying that f2c is completely
inadequate for modern fortran codes.

>
> I guess I don't see what's so offensive about rio and acme.  A hazard
> is that once one starts adding things to attract novice users (e.g.,
> shiney things) or people who are used to some particular (l)unix
> configuration (e.g., windows managers, graphical toolkits, the GNU
> world), the resulting system will be bigger, slower and clumsier.  If
> you use gcc routinely, you lose the speed of 8c.  As an example of the
> cumulative effect of such accretion, a friend reported compiling a Red
> Hat kernel from scratch recently and it only took about an hour (vs.
> the 10 minutes it took to compile V6 in 1977 on slow disks, or the 85
> seconds to compile 9pc on oldish PC hardware today).

tcc compiles the links web browser is 1/10th the time of gcc.  This
isn't terribly surprising.  This compiler appears to be x86 only
though, and does it's own assembly and linking too, it can also serve
as a C interpretter.

gcc is not, therefore, always the only choice on linux either.

>
> It may not be feasible, for example due to gcc's asm constructs, but
> it would seem more satisfying to write a gcc-to-c preprocessor.  Of
> course that doesn't help with C++; if only we had a Cfront for current
> C++.
>
>

Sounds like Comeau C++.  A commercial C++ compiler that aims for full
C++ compliance and compiles to other C compiler back ends, gcc is one
of them.

I believe EDG's C++ front end is actually known to be the best C++
front end in the world, and is also a CFront like compiler.  EDG's C++
compiler front end is written in C. :-)