Re: A quick summary of gcc compilation speed from a political pointof view

[Benjamin Kosnik <bkoz at redhat dot com>]

> So parhaps you can work with GGC developers on providing better
> development tools for that or provide some good way to measure
> compilation speed (SPEC tests do have compilation time graphs but they
> are not too usefull as they are with checking enabled and SPECs are too
> small to make changes visible in the noise). Or you can find some other
> way to contribute to GCC.

You know, I strongly agree with this. One of the big problems with the
speed issue is that it's so invisible: every time there is a new
release, somebody invariably complains it's slower than the last release.

Until then, nobody seems to notice, even though there are ostensibly
minimal speed requirements in the release criteria.

What's really needed is some kind of regular posting to gcc-testresults
that indicate the time it took to do a make check, or the time it took
to compile some known sources, etc. Perhaps contrib/test_summary could
be modified to do something like report the time to run make check?

If we had this, then people would have an easier time pinpointing
slowdowns. Also, the developers would be able to see exactly what
compilation performance was for various platforms, which would be an
excellent starting point.

Personally, I always run 

time make check

Just to make sure that PCH is not broken. But, I digress.

-benjamin