nomad@verdix.com (Lee Damon) (05/18/89)
As no new responces have come in in quite some time, I guess this is all I'm going to hear. Summarized below are the answers I got to my p[osting on "what are the available C++'s, and what do you think of them?" nomad ------------- From: Michael Tiemann <uunet!RELAY.CS.NET!tiemann%yahi.stanford.edu@verdix.com> GNU C++ is freely available from prep.ai.mit.edu, just like GNU Emacs. I am making it AT&T 2.0 compatible, and hope to release a version with support for multiple inheritance before AT&T does. GNU C++ is a native code compiler, not a translator. It runs on most of the machines running GNU CC. [...] For a review of an old version of GNU C++ vs the world, see November 1988 Unix World. ------------------- From: uunet!ucsd.edu!telesoft!dar@verdix.com (David Reisner) [...] looking at C++ implementations with an eye towards porting to new platforms/targets. [...] and including library support, Glockenspeil may come in first, AT&T second, and GNU a distant third (since it is a compiler, not a translator, porting cost is too great for new processors). ------------------ From: Larry Mellon <uunet!cpsc.UCalgary.CA!jsimellon@verdix.com> We are using the AT&T C++ compiler, with several modifactions. - ported to the sun3 (OS3.5 and 4.0) - the supplied tasking package didn't, so we wrote a new one - minor changes to avoid naming conflicts with software libraries - restructured brain-dead makefiles and directories to support versions for multiple hardware and OS bases. - minor changes to CC for speed reasons - implemented a patch program to replace unbelievably slow 'munch'. - and of course a bug fix or two Drawbacks: - spits out UGLY c code. We found several compilers that would not touch cfront's normal output. This is not a problem unless you plan on porting to several different compilers. - standard version is painfully slow! a sun3/60 (8meg, unloaded) takes 3.5 minutes to link our libraries into a small user program. (We have a very large system...) However, a week's hacking on C++ and bit of care cut this down to 1.2 minutes. - NO SOURCE LEVEL DEBUGGER!! If you've got a good memory and are an exellent typist, you can brave dbx and debug the C ouput of C++. Not recommended for the weak. Advantages: - cfront compiles to C, not assembler, thus it is portable to differing machine bases. Some work required here. - few bugs. Available from AT&T, [...] Basically, an ok version of C++. We've tried the Oregon C++ compiler; nobody here was very impressed with it; their source-level debugger was non-useful and they compile directly to assembler, thus you are stuck with whatever machines they port to. It did, however, manage to compile and run 30,000 lines of C++ with less than a week's porting efforts... Zortech has a version, I believe it is for the IBM PC family only. I believe Microsoft has a version as well, but I can't confirm that without trolling thru mega-stacks of paper. ------------------ ============= Lee Damon \ work: verdix!nomad or nomad@verdix.com \ play: {agora,tessi,verdix}!castle!nomad or nomad@castle.uucp / \ "God" created man in its image, and man being ever humble returned the favor.