Preliminary benchmarks, future articles

["Scott Robert Ladd" <scott at coyotegulch dot com>]

Hello, all.

I did not expect such intense interest in my initial "Intel vs. gcc"
benchmark article; my poor web site has groaned under the load. In a way,
it's quite gratifying, given that my first professional magazine articles
were compiler comparisons back in the late 1980s. The web article, however,
was quite simple, and very focused on benchmarks... and as such, inadequate.

So on to something bigger and better!

It is abundantly clear that people want -- and need -- real reviews of
products for Linux. To do gcc (and Intel) justice, I need to write a more
sophisticated article. Far too many people have the attitude, "It's worth
what you pay for it", which leads them to dismiss free software products as
amateur productions.

The GNU projects are remarkable, and gcc is perhaps the most amazing of them
all, providing multiple and competitive compilers on many platforms; while I
certainly like Intel's compiler for specific tasks, I feel as though some
people have misinterpreted my benchmarks as evidence that commercial
products are "superior" to free software.

And that just ain't so.

I'll be working on an updated article this weekend, or likely publication on
Monday, 20 May. I'd appreciate any insights, ideas, or views -- preferably
by e-mail -- from anyone on this list.

Thank you, one and all, for your kind assistance.

..Scott

Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions,  http://www.coyotegulch.com
No ads -- just very free (and somewhat unusual) code.