> Meh, generally speaking Solaris + GCC, and everything > works nicely out > of the box.
That's a positive trend which begun only recently. However, it's still plagued with problems: - GCC generates crappy, slow code - GCC allows one to write crappy, non-portable code (and doesn't even blink) - GCC lacks any of the advanced optimization features of the professional compilers (hp's, sgi's, Sun's) - often, one doesn't even get past the braindead ./configure phase, so even GCC doesn't help in that situation Let's look at this Wine thing. I compiled it with GCC. Yes, it runs, and from that little bit of playing I did with WinZip, it even seems to run decently fast. However, had I been able to use the Sun Studio compilers, I would have been able to go to town on that thing and make it *really fast* (short of hand optimizing the source and assembler code) - automatic profiling, memory / function defragmentation, elimination of dead / unused code, cross-function optimizations, post-binary optimizations (yes, Sun Studio can do them!) - I could have gained up to 80% faster binaries, and with something like Wine, every CPU cycle counts! > I hardly blame OSS developers for not testing their > software with > Solaris or Sun's own compilers on their chosen > platform given that Sun > demands registration - for what purpose? buggered if > I know - and the > fact that it gives no real benefits to the programmer > other than the > nice warm fuzzy feeling that his or her code has been > blessed by Sun > Studio. Well, Sun is trying to find other ways to monetize their hard work - many, many hours of professional, expensive engineering effort went into those advanced compilers you now get to download gratis. It might not necessarily be nice to give data to marketeers, but for getting a $2,000 - $5,000 USD worth of professional compilers, I believe it's not a bad deal. (Marketeers, don't take that stamement as an encouragement to start spamming people with marketing promotions!) This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
