frank@odetics.com (Frank Merrow) (10/13/90)
Hi Everyone, We are having an ongoing debate here at Odetics about "C" compilers. We need one that will run on all three of our Sun architectures (Sun3, Sparc and 386i) and will cross compile on each of those machines as a MINIMUM to at least 68000 code, but preferably to any of the other machines as well as to several of the 680x0 processors. An ANSI compiler is STRONGLY preferred for the prototyping (if nothing else). At any rate two compilers currently have some backing within the company; GNU gcc and the "new unbundled, (as yet) undelivered Sun ANSI compiler". The Sun compiler has the obvious advantage of leaving us still in "single vendor mode" and the obvious disadvantage of getting a compiler with a small and new customer base plus the cost. (If anyone out there is a Beta site or something I would be interested in hearing your experiences!) The GNU compiler is just unknown to us. We pulled it in from uunet and it seemed to come up OK, but the code it generated on one program we tried it with (at first blush) seemed BIGGER than Sun's standard compiler for the Sun3. This bothers us a LOT because we know how sloppy the code is on Sun3 (Sun3 actually generates a MOVEM instruction with no registers specified at many routine calls!!!!) I would like to hear experiences from the users out there who use the gcc product. Is it any good? How tight is the code? When problems develop is there anyone interested in looking into them and/or fixing them or would we basically be "on our own". I basically want to hear the best and the worst about gcc from you all. If there is enough interest I will sumarize and repost. Thank You in advance. Frank Merrow frank@odetics.com