[rescue] Why gcc exists - Re: Help with SunFire V240 Server

[Toby Thain]

On 11/04/13 12:58 PM, Andrew Gaylard wrote:
> On 04/11/13 17:50, microcode at zoho.com wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 05:25:06PM +0200, Andrew Gaylard wrote:
>>
>>> I have downloaded the Sun Studio compiler, but haven't tried it;
>>> gcc has always "just worked" for me.
>> Not surprising given 99.9% of apps seem to be written for Linux.
>> Still, most
>> stuff builds easily on Solaris with Studio after you set CFLAGS and
>> occasionally LDFLAGS. One notable exception is git.
>>
>>> Does someone have any info (URLs, etc) showing if it really is
>>> faster, and
>>> by how much?
>> It seems pretty obvious to me Solaris Studio would be faster on SPARC,
>> just
>> like Intel's compilers are faster on Intel chips. Why would anybody think
>> gcc is faster or better at anything?
> The reason I think it's faster is that, on SunOS-4.1.1, gcc-2.2's code
> (I think it was 2.2) was 30-50% faster than /usr/bin/cc.
>
> Oh wait, that was 23 years ago.

Being "better than vendor's" was not only the raison d'jtre for gcc, it 
was also why it eventually supplanted nearly all of them :)

(Also, 23 years ago, x86 wasn't a mainstream server platform.)

But tell the kids these days... they won't believe yer...

--Toby

>
> You're probably right. Old habits die hard.... :)