Re: [9fans] ken cc for linux

[Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com>]

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On 12 March 2015 at 10:06, Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've used it and lib9 in several other projects where other compilers
> couldn't be used for licensing reasons, or because they were awful.
>

I'll add that the compilers are great for kernel and other New World
systems work.
Once stable on a given platform, they've been quite robust (I never suspect
them at the start as a bug cause).
Code quality is rarely a bottleneck for systems work in my experience
(and there's a good reason that removing -O3 is a way to fix bugs with
other compilers).
If I were writing scientific computation, I wouldn't use C anyway, but if I
did, I'd worry
much more about the effectiveness of optimisation. For systems work? It's
really, really low on the list.
The cross-module type checking has also spotted a few things that every
other compiler missed.

Cross-compilation is easy and precise, with next to no configuration
required,
unlike nearly all the others; I rely on that a lot. It's worth the price of
entry for that alone, for me,
having suffered with gcc on an old OS project of mine; I'd never use it
again for anything new.
(Obviously I still use gcc for the 8 hour[!] Linux kernel compiles and
builds.)

lcc used to include all the code generators, so I suppose that would be
just as good, except
that it spits out assembly and you have to rely on external components,
which still leaves you cross when attempting
to cross-compile.

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