POPE@KL.SRI.COM.UUCP (04/10/87)
I plan to buy a C compiler in the next couple weeks and would like
recommendations for or against Megamax and Mark Williams C. From what
I've heard, Megamax has a nice development environment, good debugger,
and compiles quickly. MWC has great GEM documentation and fast
floating-point support. Any remarks from people who have used one or
both compilers?
They both seem to be approximately the same price (~ $150 US)--any
recommendations on where to buy either by mail-order (I'm in
California)?
Finally, is serious C development possible with one double-sided
floppy, a one megabyte machine, and a large ramdisk? Would either
Megamax or MWC be more suitable for use with the hardware I have? Is
a second floppy or hard disk advisable?
Thank you for any input you have. I'll summarize responses to the net
if people are interested.
David E. Pope
pope@kl.sri.com
-------manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (04/12/87)
In article <12293477492.22.POPE@KL.SRI.COM> POPE@KL.SRI.COM (David Pope) writes: >Finally, is serious C development possible with one double-sided >floppy, a one megabyte machine, and a large ramdisk? Would either >Megamax or MWC be more suitable for use with the hardware I have? Is >a second floppy or hard disk advisable? I recently posted a rave review of MWC to this newsgroup. After using it for a couple of weeks (interrupted by a dead monitor for a few days) my raves have if anything increased. It provides a complete development environment, including a nice shell which isn't quite like the Bourne, C, or Korn shells, the standard utility programs, and nice libraries. I've configured my system with one double-sided disk containing most of the utilities and libraries, the compiler and editor on the ramdisk, and source/object code on another drive. You certainly can use it on a single-drive system, but it would be pretty horrible (the manual says you can use it on a 520 with a single-sided drive, but I wouldn't want to try that). I know at least one person who uses it on the configuration David has, and he seems pretty happy with it. The big win with MWC is that it does fussy type checking. That turns out to make some code I've got over the net not compile, but I really like compilers which force me to make sure I know what I'm doing. The compiler really does catch a lot of stupid errors (maybe you folks don't make them, but I do). In my last posting, I mentioned that I'd bought my copy from a firm called MicroTyme, for US$119. A lot of people asked for address and phone number. MicroTyme P.O. Box 368 Kettering, OH 45409 1-800-255-5835 (US only) or 1-513-294-6236 Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with MicroTyme or Mark Williams Co. ----- Vincent Manis {seismo,uw-beaver}!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!manis Dept. of Computer Science manis@cs.ubc.cdn Univ. of British Columbia manis%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5 manis@ubc.csnet (604) 228-6770 or 228-3061 "BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of 'Scientific Creationism'."