Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/09/07/22:57:05
On Sun, 7 Sep 1997, firewind wrote:
..
> > Besides the Game Quake, professionals don't use free compileres
>
> And Quake, man, that's just such an inconsequential program, isn't it? At
> any rate, just because a company is too stupid to understand that free
> software often has higher quality than commercial software doesn't
> automagically make that higher quality go away. Your statement proves less
> than nothing.
As I stated earlier, I have no objection to the contention that MSVC++ is
much "better" (i.e. friendlier) and natural than DJGPP as a Windows
development platform. No question.
But GCC (which what DJGPP really is, at bottom) excels at cross-platform
development. Name a 32-bit processor, even an obscure one like the ROMP,
and odds are that GCC supports it. That's dozens more than MSVC++
supports. On some platforms (e.g. SunOS 4.x, HPUX 9) which are COMMERCIAL
UNIX variants, GCC is the preferred compiler, over the native (brain
damaged) compiler. Professionals DO use GCC on a daily basis, often
preferring it to what their vendor supplies.
And as a technical achievement, GCC leaves MSVC++ in the dust. It's
probably the only compiler which can optimize for so many processors in a
portable manner, and for which additional processor support can be added
by adding a (relatively small) machine description file.
As an aside: I've gotten to build Quake on Linux, Solaris, and SGI IRIX,
from the same source code, using GCC. That's saying something for
portability.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Orlando Alcantara Andico
WWW: http://www2.mozcom.com/~orly/ Email: orly AT mozcom DOT com
ICBM: 14 30 00 N 120 59 00 E POTS: (+632) 932-2385
- Raw text -