Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!xanth!nic.MR.NET!hal!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!bpa!manta!brant From: brant@manta.pha.pa.us (Brant Cheikes) Newsgroups: unix-pc.general Subject: Re: Cancel that offer! Message-ID: <451@manta.pha.pa.us> Date: 3 Dec 88 01:25:27 GMT References: <448@manta.pha.pa.us> <5339@rphroy.UUCP> Reply-To: brant@manta.pha.pa.us (Brant Cheikes) Distribution: unix-pc Organization: Soul of the Gnu Machine, Philadelphia Lines: 36 In article <5339@rphroy.UUCP> tkacik@rphroy.UUCP (Tom Tkacik) writes: >Gcc has many flags which cause it to act differently. [...] >When using gcc, if the executable crashes, but doesn't when compiled >with pcc, [different gcc options] are now the first things I try, and >usually, (but not always) the result is a working program. Tom, you appear to be saying here: if at first it doesn't work [using gcc], try, try again with different options. I think this is the wrong attitude, and I hope you would not expect a mature C compiler (which gcc is not) to require this kind of effort. But that's another argument entirely. I posted the original article because I thought that there might be quite a few unix-pc users out there thinking that gcc was, to use Arnold Robbins' phrase (personal communication), "one hell of a butt-kicking C compiler" to replace their stock cc. My experience with it was that I often couldn't get gcc -O to produce anything that worked at all or worked better than what stock cc -O produced. I don't think too many C developers really want to have to know the right incantation of gcc options to get a running program. The point is that gcc is still very much in development, and not something to be depended on. Sure, folks like Tom who are very familiar with gcc's innards, they can get some use out of it. But anyone who thinks they can ln /usr/local/bin/gcc /bin/cc has another think coming. If people still want to get their hands on bins of gcc-1.26 or gcc-1.31 and have no other source, send me mail and I will probably reconsider making them both available again for anonymous uucp. -- Brant Cheikes University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science brant@manta.pha.pa.us, brant@linc.cis.upenn.edu, bpa!manta!brant