[Mingw-users] new version of mingw

[jacob <ja...@ja...>]

Congratulations

The new version looks much better than the older ones.

For starters, it compiles the IDE of lcc-win32 without any big problems.

This is the first version that does it. Your header files are starting to 
work now.

The IDE (+ debugger) is a complex windows program, using many 
"rarely used" stuff. Compiled without any trouble, outside a minor
problem.

lcc-win32 accepts
    char *a
    struct s {
        char text[20];
    };
    struct s S;

    a = s->text;

With gcc you shoud write:

    a = (char *)s->text;

Not a big deal.

The big problems started much later. I have a benchmark for 64 bit
arithmetic, and recently I was very proud that I got 208 thousand
bits per second, since gcc-2.95.2 arrived only at around 235 thousand
and MSVC to 245 thousand.

Arriving within a few percent of gcc was (for me) a big deal. Imagine now, when
I saw the latest version go up to 280 thousand.

Ahhh back to the drawing board then :-)

The key of gcc's success seems to be a scheduler that really understands
the stuff is scheduling. And I can't do that, at least for now.

Is it worth?

Maybe, maybe not.

My code is still smaller than gcc's, but I did not optimize for size (-O2)
and it is difficult to measure exactly. In any case, the header files were
neatly done.

The only problem is the incredible slow compilation speed. I compiled
the IDE in 14 seconds, gcc in 146 seconds.

Both compilers (lcc and gcc) doing optimizations. I have still *some*
advantges, mind you!

jacob

lcc-win32: a compiler system for windows:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32.