Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/02/02/20:10:59
Daniel P Hudson <afn03257 AT afn DOT org "Dan"> wrote:
>cigna AT helios DOT phy DOT OhioU DOT Edu (Dave Cigna) wrote:
>>Do you have any real experience using these compilers, or have you
>>just read the docs thoroughly?
>
> Does that really matter? Whether I've read about the bugs or
> experienced them? To answer your question both, I like to read about
> bugs before I experience them if possible.
Yes, it matters. Over in rec.audio.* you'll find a whole class of
people that spend half of their time reading Stereo Review and studying
manufacturers specs. They spend the other half of their time arguing
which specs are important. I take audio seriously, and when I'm
looking for new gear I *listen* to everything I can and then decide
which sounds best with the type of music I listen too in my living
room.
Truth is, I don't really care who has a bigger penis, and I have little
patience for specsmanship. If you have some real experience in the
trenches then share it with us. Otherwise...
>>You've made two broad claims:
>
> Are you sure?
Yeah. The keyword is broad. You've made a multitude of claims
(not all of which are consistent), but I'm sure that I got your
major thesis right. For a second I was tempted to go back through
your posts and pull some quotes, but it really is not worth my time;
This is a pretty silly argument.
>>I have used both compilers, as well as a variety of others, and
>>my own entirely anecdotal (but entirely real) experience is that
>>GCC is by far the most bug free compiler on the planet. (I removed
>>Borland from my HD and gave away the diskettes and books; I couldn't
>>stand it locking up or rebooting my machine anymore.) Exactly the
>>same goes for it's ANSI compliance. I have found that my code
>
> And Borland ran under windows right? DJGPP runs under? Ooh what's
> that, DOS? The more stable OS for home PC's?
I'll call on the English I know to try to interpret this. You're
trying to argue that BC is better because it supports a wider range
of platforms? (Trust me, you don't want to go there!) Or are you
saying that spontaneous reboots, etc are unavoidable under DOS?
> If your Borland C++ was
> DOS based then you are a rare one, kind of like me and Linux, I'm told.
> I've used Borland and Turbo C++ versions from 1.0 and never experienced
> anything like you claim unless I was using risky code, in which case I
> was the one who caused the crash and not the compiler, And I've already
> crashed under RHIDE 1.1 [forget 1.0] about 4 times, so ....
Trust me. I've been doing this long enough that I don't blame problems
in my own code on the compiler. And after you've used (not just
experimented with) a variety of different compilers you develop a sense
of just how much confidence you have in a particular one. My confidence
in BC declined steadily over the year and a half that I used it. Since
I started using GCC about three years ago my confidence has only
increased. I admit that I am a loner in that I never grew fond of BC or
it's IDE, but I'm not imagining the problems I had with it.
>>>This is true, however, technically you could patch the commercial
>>>software yourself with a debugger.
>
>>What planet are you from?
>
> You might want to answer this one yourself after your two false
> assumptions there, Mac. I have patched commercial software using debug
> before, it is POSSIBLE! In fact, I patched EDIT using ASCII coding
> techniques for machine code in EDIT. It is utterly amazing what one can
> do when one is determined. Granted I would have preferred HLL src code
> to patch, I got the task accomplished just the same.
Err... Yeah, we've all had fun performing little hacks like that. Would
you try to use DEBUG to find and repair a bug in an optimizer? I prefer
to have the sources to work with. This is what Eli was talking about and
my rotten English led me to believe that this is what you were talking
about too.
Look, I've already said it, but I'll say it again. I don't really care
who prefers Borland over GCC. I'll use what I'll use. But your incessancy
has gotten on my nerves, especially since I have a suspicion that your
arguments are based on second hand information. I should know better than
to let it get to me, but it has.
-- Dave Cigna
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