Re: [kde-discuss] Gentle Question

On 12 May 2008, at 22:49, Shawn Walker wrote:

> On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 3:39 PM, Mats Rojestal
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I can't figure out what the advantage of using sun compilers is,
>> maybe a death wish. My simple observations from gcc 4.x.x  
>> performance is
>> that it's not inferior to other compilers.
>> Solaris is not a major player in the OS market and making it harder  
>> to
>> port software to Solaris isn't really a good idea.
>
> It's simple. The GNU C++ complier produces binaries that are not ABI
> compatible with Sun Studio compilers.
>
> In addition, it produces code that is up to 50% slower on SPARC, and
> often slower on x86.

Hi

My experience is that GCC and Sun Studio both have strengths and  
weaknesses:

GCC
+ better C++ conformance, especially template corner cases
- non-standard extensions (e.g., doesn't use #pragma, but things like  
__attribute__)
- not enforcing different standards unless using -ansi -pedantic,  
which usually isn't the case (e.g., allowing C++ features in C code  
and vice versa)
- glibc (not an issue on Solaris), ABI and libsctd++ not stable

Some C99 features are nice to use, in particular the fixed size  
integral types.

Studio
+ faster compile times
+ faster executables
+ better control over warnings
- when using, libCstd has probably the worst C++ conformance of any  
major supported C++ compiler, makes it difficult or impossible to use  
libs like boost. KDE doesn't use libCstd, so this is somewhat moot.
- different options for C and C++ (can be a pain if rolling your own  
Makefiles)

I'd also add that my experience of Sun ld versus Linux GNU ld is that  
the latter can sometimes be substantially slower (GCC can use Sun ld  
as well, of course). Also, dbx is much more capable than gdb, on the  
whole.

A+
Paul


___________________________________________________
This message is from the kde-solaris mailing list.
Account management:  https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-solaris.
Archives: http://lists.kde.org/.
More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.