From: "John M. Aldrich" Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Is DJGPP any good?? Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 02:19:47 -0500 Organization: Two pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt. Lines: 38 Message-ID: <34CD8A93.4A66@cs.com> References: <34CB6674 DOT 1189 AT geocities DOT com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp205.cs.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk Skeletor wrote: > > Hi, > I'm just wondering if this DJGPP compiler is any good > hence "you get what you pay for" plz mail all comments to > skeletor1 AT geocities DOT com In the sense of "you get what you pay for," DJGPP is not completely free. It requires some investment of time and effort on your part to get used to it. After that, you are home free, because DJGPP is one of the best compilers available for PC platforms, and probably _the_ best DOS-native compiler. Its code generation is fantastic; it works under almost all platforms, and its copyright allows you to do nearly anything you want with code you produce from it. The major reason why DJGPP remains free, instead of costing hundreds of dollars, is the user support. DJGPP isn't supported by, in Nate's elegant phrase, "underpaid tech support droids," but by the users themselves who have encountered problems, solved them, and now wish to pass their knowledge on to others. Also, DJGPP is a rapidly evolving product, and users are constantly contributing more and newer packages, including add-ons designed from scratch, ports of tools from other compilers, and compatibility packages like RSXNT and wsock. All this is free because everybody helps, thereby spreading the burden of tech support over a large number of people. The DJGPP developers and the die-hard users all have one awesome goal in mind: proving that freeware developed openly and cooperatively can be every bit as good as those buggy, poorly-supported products you pay hundreds of dollars for. :-) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- | John M. Aldrich | "If 'everybody knows' such-and-such, | | aka Fighteer I | then it ain't so, by at least ten | | mailto:fighteer AT cs DOT com | thousand to one." | | http://www.cs.com/fighteer | - Lazarus Long | ---------------------------------------------------------------------