[oi-dev] Compiler migration #2

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2013, Jim Klimov wrote:

> On 2013-01-26 20:57, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
>> GCC 4.4 does not produce code for modern CPUs whereas GCC is continually
>> enhanced to be able to produce code which targets modern CPUs.
>
> And in terms of prepackaged generic distribution that works on i386
> and above, how can targeting of modern CPUs be a useful bonus and
> not a drawback? This was stressed by Luca's question:

Even when targeting the instruction set for some particular baseline 
CPU level, newer GCCs are better at producing code which runs better 
on modern CPUs.  The optimizers are better and instruction scheduling 
is better.

>From my own testing, GCC 3.x code performance is pretty terrible.  GCC 
4.4 is much better.

If one was to start a major effort to port OpenIndiana packages from 
Sun Studio to GCC, it makes sense to start with a modern GCC. 
Producing a good GCC package is pretty easy, and in fact OpenIndiana 
SFE already provides one.

Bob
-- 
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/