Re: Re(2): optimizing compilers
Re: Re(2): optimizing compilers
- Subject: Re: Re(2): optimizing compilers
- From: Finlay Dobbie <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 19:53:45 +0000
On Friday, February 1, 2002, at 02:25 PM, Jens Bauer wrote:
I think that the guys at Apple should try porting MrC and MrCpp
compilers
to Mac OS X.
They aren't going to do that, but they have moved some MrC and MrCpp
engineers over to optimizing GCC's PPC backend.
There's no ObjC compiler yet (as far as I know), but I definately like
MrCpp, and it's already running on a PowerPC, so the porting shouldn't
take long. Furthermore, porting a command-line compiler isn't as hard as
porting a UI application.
That's a little naive. Even once MrC(pp) was ported, which would
probably not be a walk in the park, large portions of the OS X code
would probably have to be re-worked so they don't rely on gcc
extensions, etc etc. And CLI apps can be just as difficult to port as a
UI application, if not more so, their user interface is not directly
proportional to their complexity.
I can see issues with the linker and the XCOUGH/PEF formats, but that
should be possible to solve.
It's called XCOFF, and I don't know why there would be any issues with
XCOFF at all considering OS X uses Mach-O binaries natively, and PEF
formats are supported via the LaunchCFMApplication wrapper.
Furthermore, I'd suggest Motorola's C/C++ compiler. Unfortunately, I got
the *very last* copy from Motorola; they're not distributing it.
MrC was actually faster in many cases.
And finally.. The CodeWarrior guys may want to consider creating a plug-
in for Project Builder of their compiler ? -Just like the MPW folks made
MrC/MrCpp plugins for CodeWarrior ? :)
Difference is that PB doesn't export a plugin API in quite the same
way... Although you might have some fun modifying the jamfiles in
/Developer/Makefiles :-) (CW Pro 7 does have a CLI tool frontend for its
compiler, I think).
-- Finlay