Date: Sun, 13 Mar 94 15:06:51 EST
From: peprbv AT cfa0 DOT harvard DOT edu (Bob Babcock)
To: alex DOT alexander AT adam DOT com DOT au
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: LINKING TIMES DJ1
Reply-To: babcock AT cfa DOT harvard DOT edu

> In versions 9 and 10 the link times were 1-2 minutes
> and prog size about 400k.
> In version 11 link time 45 minutes and prog size 1.4meg
> The compile times are at least twice as long,.
> The slow link is my major problem.

If your exe file has grown that much, it suggests that you are now including
debug information which was not previously included.

I found that my link times under os/2 were significantly reduced when I
increased buffers= in config.sys, even though os/2 also provides disk
caching.  In my case, I think the problem was that I have 780 or more files
in the directory, and many buffers are needed to keep the entire directory in
memory.

If you only have 4 megs and are using 1 meg for disk cache, you might find
that compiles will go faster with a smaller cache and more free extended
memory.  An interesting experiment would be to time the compilation of a
single routine with various size caches and look for an optimum size.  A
simpler experiment (which can be combined with the first one) would be to
compile the same routine twice in a row and see if it goes faster the second
time.  If it doesn't, it means that your cache isn't big enough to hold all
the stuff which passes through it during a compile.