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