From:	Paul Koning 1695 <pkoning AT chipcom DOT com>
To:	djgpp mailing list <djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu>
Subject:	RE: gcc = gcc -O2 ?
Date:	Mon, 16 Jan 95 14:35:00 PST
Encoding:	22 TEXT

>I've been asked whether it would be a Good Thing for "gcc" to default
>to "gcc -O2" rather than "gcc -O0", so that if you didn't specify
>anything, you would get optimization by default.  The reason is that
>so you would, by default, get faster programs and thus better
>benchmarks, at the cost of slower compiles.  You would still be able
>to use "gcc -O0" to shut off optimization.

Please, no.  Turning optimization on has a significant impact on compile
performance.

The benchmark argument makes no sense.  Someone who doesn't know
enough to turn on optimization shouldn't be running benchmarks.

>This came up because someone thought that most PC compilers, by
>default, optimized, so gcc should also.

Maybe that's because they optimize so little that it has no visible effect
on compiler performance?  :-)

     paul koning
     pkoning AT chipcom DOT com

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