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Re: gcc compile-time performance
- From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple dot com>
- To: Robert Dewar <dewar at gnat dot com>
- Cc: dberlin at dberlin dot org, ak at suse dot de, dhazeghi at pacbell dot net, gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org, neil at daikokuya dot demon dot co dot uk
- Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 17:38:01 -0700
- Subject: Re: gcc compile-time performance
- References: <20020518001420.36B7DF28C4@nile.gnat.com>
Robert Dewar wrote:
>
> My own feeling here is that compile time performance is less important
> than run time performance. We have never seen a customer pushed in the
> direction of a proprietary compiler by compile time performance, but we
> have seen many concerns about runtime performance being slower.
Depends on the audience. Most Apple developers pound on Steve Jobs
about GCC being slower than CodeWarrior, then Steve proceeds to
pound on us. :-( :-) There is a group that is concerned about
runtime performance, but it's much smaller.
For large system building (OS X for example), excessive compile
times reduce the number of times you can rebuild the system, which
restricts development and limits QA time, which hurts overall
quality.
So for some people, it's a pretty serious issue. Apple has the
PFE mechanism for precompiled headers that I've described
previously, which has reduced the pounding, but it's not stopped
by any means.
Stan