Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 10:54:37 +0800 (GMT)
From: Orlando Andico <orly AT dilnet DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph>
To: firewind <firewind AT metroid DOT dyn DOT ml DOT org>
cc: Joel Rosenthal <ZZTiger AT mho DOT net>, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.95.970907183259.214A-100000@metroid.dyn.ml.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.93.970908104145.2452C-100000@gibson>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Precedence: bulk

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