db21@ihlpl.UUCP (04/13/87)
Subject: Follow-up on Turbo C and Datalight C review Rod, My apologies for contacting you in this way. I have tried quite unsuccessfully to send you this by mail. However, the mailer system hasn't liked the return address you supplied -- cpocd2 is unknown even to uuto! Maybe someday you'll get this! At the time I ordered my Datalight C Compiler from Programmers Connection the story was that Turbo C would not be available until about June. I haven't checked lately to see if it is any different. Did you happen to see/read the article in comp.sys.ibm.pc titled "Turbo C - experience with an alpha copy"? Some good comments that make it seem like Turbo C will be hard to beat if and when it ever comes out! I had an opportunity to try out my Datalight C compiler (herein DLC) this past weekend so here are some of my 'limited experience' comments. I had two programs for my test, areacode.c and the Unix source paste.c. I also had a copy of Microsoft C, 4.0 (herein MSC) for compile speed comparison. I ran both compilers in floppy configuration and the DLC in hard-disk configuration once I installed it. Both packages compiled areacode without any problems or errors. DLC was quicker, it went to link immediately after the compiler passes (I believe it used a bat file), and did not pester me with a lot of questions about what this, that and everyother filename were. MSC required me to change disks from compiler to linker and then enter a separate command to start linking and also had lots of questions about filenames etc. (I borrowed this copy so I may not have had an optimum setup). The results with paste.c were quite different. DLC came up with three errors in the code which was taken directly from Unix and unmodified. Microsoft took the same code and compiled it without error or warning. As I didn't want to spend a lot of time at it, I did not attempt to resolve the errors as reported by DLC so I can't say if it was successful later. After I installed DLC on my hard-disk I compiled areacode a second time and saw a dramatic reduction in compile time. Can't say what MSC would do similarly because I don't own it and didn't want to go through the bother. I would like to get my hands on Turbo C and run it against DLC for comparison. The alpha copy experience article sure leads me to believe that DLC and Turbo C will run neck and neck speed- wise. I would be more interested in seeing what kind of libraries Turbo C has and whether it can handle most code unmodified. For that I'l have to wait, I guess. Let me know if you get a solid date for release of Turbo C. Please also note my regular email address in now ihlpl!db21. I was being transfered to this machine so I used an alternate address previously. Dave Beyerl ihlpl!db21