Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site uw-beaver Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!info-mac From: info-mac@uw-beaver Newsgroups: fa.info-mac Subject: Compiler opinion. Message-ID: <218@uw-beaver> Date: Fri, 14-Dec-84 22:53:58 EST Article-I.D.: uw-beave.218 Posted: Fri Dec 14 22:53:58 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 16-Dec-84 04:42:38 EST Sender: daemon@uw-beaver Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 48 From: James.Anderson@CMU-CS-K Recent posts seem to indicate that people don't know too much about what compilers are available for the mac, the following info is from net.micro.mac, pardon me if I abreviate. Using the "sieve" bench mark as a test program, the following results were obtained by a researcher at Comdex. compiler time size comile/link time Megamax 4.17 5k 105 Softworks 7.0 25k 300+ Consulair 10.0 12k 125 Hippo 60+ n/a n/a You will see that the Megamax compiler blows the others away, Aztec was not rated at that time, but a later review placed as roughly equal to Softworks. I happened to see the post after already having the Megamax compiler. After using Sumex C, this compiler was a major relief. The Megamax people are very good on customer service as well, on finding a bug I called them and was called back almost immediately by a knowledgeable and courteous technical representitive, who was in fact the person that wrote the linker, and much of the other source as well. They immediately shipped a new disk with a more current release that had the bug fixed. Some points of comparison: Floating point. Sumex's is very buggy, just try it. Consulair reportedly doesn't have it. System interface. several compilers have a limited amount of access to the macintosh internal routines, Megamax supports all the ones I've looked for so far and you will soon be able to purchase the source code for the library routines. The system library also has several unix system calls implemented as well. (printf, scanf, fopen, etc.) Another great selling point is the price, which is fairly cheap. >From what I've seen they can't keep them on the shelves. So for my money, this is the best compiler currently available, and the company says it is going to get even better, but don't let that delay your purchasing one because they offer a free upgrade when the new system is released. Personally, I am very pleased with the product. Jim Anderson jwa@cmu-cs-k jwa@cmu-ee-a Disclaimer: None of the above reflects the opinions of my employers or anyone other than myself.