GCC viciously beaten by ICC in trig test!

[Kai Henningsen]

gdr@integrable-solutions.net (Gabriel Dos Reis)  wrote on 15.03.04 in <m3llm2ssp9.fsf@uniton.integrable-solutions.net>:

> "Stephan T. Lavavej" <stl@caltech.edu> writes:
>
> | [Scott Robert Ladd]
> | > Sometimes, I wonder if GCC should ship its own Standard C
> | > library, just as it ships a Standard C++ template library.
> | > However, I suspect the suggesting such a move might be a bit
> | > controversial... ;)
> |
> | Why doesn't it?
>
> This is a tricky issue. Some standards (e.g. POSIX) make conflicting
> requirements to that of ISO C standard,

Actually, POSIX takes great pains to *NOT* do that.

> and as a matter of fact
> demand that the C standard headers be modified.

Actually, POSIX says that any differences are dependant on prior  
definition of a preprocessor symbol in the implementation namespace. I  
believe this strategy was chosen with advice from the C standards  
committee.

>  If GCC/gcc had to
> come with its own C headers, then it would have to implement those
> standards too -- in order to comply with user expectations.
> That is a mess and GCC has better not drive into that.

Actually, it seems that would be vastly cleaner than the contortions  
libstdc++ goes through. (And it would many such contortions unnecessary,  
as libstdc++ could count on support from libc.)

The *real* problem is that available infrastructure between different OSes  
can differ just as much as different CPUs do, meaning you need a libc  
backend like you need the gcc backend. That is nontrivial.

MfG Kai