scc@cl.cam.ac.uk (Stephen Crawley) (10/07/89)
>> And what is wrong with some people using pre-validated compilers? After >> all that is how much of the rest of the computing industry works at >> the moment. It is often better to use a new, somewhat flakey compiler >> now if it offers significant benefits. > Are you serious??? It's better to use a somewhat flakey compiler??? In a lot of cases ... in the real world ... given that "somewhat flakey" means "pre-validated" ... definitely yes. There are a lot of people in the real world who cannot afford to be conservative about the compilers they use. If they were, they'd always be last into the marketplace with their products. This is another way not to stay in business. Sure. If you have managed to corner a section of the marketplace, or if you are doing bespoke software development to your own deadlines, you may well save time and money by being conservative and using a properly validated compiler. Given that you have to choose between three options: 1) do it now with a pre-validated compiler for a new language or 2) do it later with a validated compiler for a new language or 3) do it now with a validated compiler for an existing, but clearly inadequate language there are undoubtedly situations where the COMMERCIALLY CORRECT decision is to take a risk and go for option 1) --- > The ivory tower world makes some terrific contributions, but they can > keep their flakey compilers until such time as they aren't flakey any > more, thank you very much. Hah! I'm not talking about toy compilers written as undergraduate projects. I'm talking about flakey compilers written by commercial outfits, sold for BIG MONEY. Like the dodgy VS FORTRAN compiler that IBM flogs to its scientific customers. Or some of the early C compilers for PC's and Macs. Thank YOU very much! --- Some food for thought: Compiler validation is a method of demonstrating that a compiler doesn't have one of a fixed list of bugs ... not that it doesn't have ANY bugs. -- Steve