correctness and comprehensiveness of compilers [was: Re: C compiletime]

[Robert Myers]

Scott Robert Ladd wrote:

> Wolfgang Bangerth wrote:
>
>>  icc may be fast, but that isn't enough. We use icc as a good
>> compliance checker for standards conformance of our code ;-)
>
>
> I've always liked having more than one compiler for a given platforms, 
> for the very reason you cite. I find my code is more portable and 
> reliable if I can make it work with several compilers.
>
> That said, I've not found code that won't compile correctly with icc, 
> but that may very well be the fact that I use it almost exclusively 
> for code of my own invention, or standardized benchmarks that tend not 
> to stress language features.
>
The problem with icc is that (at least as far as I can tell) it gets out 
of sync with the header files and library routines it needs to cooperate 
with, and I have had to update the compiler just to get vanilla code 
(not my own) to compile.  Maybe (probably?) not much of a problem if 
you're paying for annual support and you keep your compiler up-to-date, 
but it is a problem.

Relying on a proprietary compiler as the lynch-pin of (say) a 
high-performance computing project disables much of what is appealing 
about open source as a model for broad cooperation, because the cost of 
the compiler and annual support becomes a barrier to entry.

Maybe no one else sees this as a huge challenge for Linux, but I do.

For those I am cc'ing unecessarily, please accept my apologies.  I don't 
know who does and does not subscribe to the gcc list.  Please reply to 
rmyers@rustuck.com.

RM