Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: MPW 3.0 Beta Information
Message-ID: <5951@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 28 Nov 88 00:07:24 GMT
References: <1629@maccs.McMaster.CA> <7726@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 29

Does anyone know whether the MPW 3.0 C compiler does precompiled header
files?  This is the biggest problem with compilation speeds.  For a
250K program I did for TOPS, I wound up making my own stripped-down
header files for the Mac OS just to get acceptable speed on a Mac II.
On an SE with no accelerator, it's sheer hell.

It's not exactly hard to preload symbol tables from a dump file.  If
Apple refuses, I may just do an _Open patch for that purpose myself.
It's just too slow to read in some ten-plus very long include files on
every C file.  And it's dumb to spend time trying to organize your code
to minimize include files per source file.

Also, does anyone know what kinds of optimizations the compiler will
perform?  The code quality of the Greenhills MPW C compiler started out
great, but steadily declined with every new release, and in the final
release a tech note said optimization simply should not be used at all
because of bugs in it.  Thanks, guys.  Do we get at least the register
optimization techniques that were so well understood a decade ago?  I
wish I didn't have to ask, but most C compilers I've stepped through
ignore optimization.  PCC seems to have had the effect of freezing C
compiler development at a mid-70's level; I was amazed Greenhills did
as well as they did with a PCC base.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"Because there is something in you that I respect, and that makes me desire
 to have you for my enemy."
"That's well said.  On those terms, sir, I will accept your enmity or any
 man's."
    - Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple"