To: dj AT stealth DOT ctron DOT com (DJ Delorie)
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: gcc = gcc -O2 ? 
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 95 10:38:49 +0200
From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>

> I've been asked whether it would be a Good Thing for "gcc" to default
> to "gcc -O2" rather than "gcc -O0", so that if you didn't specify
> anything, you would get optimization by default.  The reason is that

IMHO, the name of the game here is compatibility.  It is a
de-facto standard in the undustry that C compiler does not
optimize unless told so.  If this is changing, then DJGPP
should also change.  If GNU alone are about to change this,
then I won't be happy about it, but I don't think we have
any alternative but to also change as they would: after all,
the least one can expect from a GCC port is to have as
consistent a behavior across platforms as the platforms
allow.

> This came up because someone thought that most PC compilers, by
> default, optimized, so gcc should also.

I don't think this is so.  What compilers are these?

> Should -g imply -O0 as the default?

Again, no, IMO.  Except of the compatibility reason above,
this also requires one more thing to remember.