Re: Baby X is bor nagain

On 19/06/2024 09:05, David Brown wrote:

On 18/06/2024 20:22, bart wrote:

On 17/06/2024 14:43, David Brown wrote:

On 17/06/2024 12:30, bart wrote:

On 17/06/2024 07:22, James Kuyper wrote:

On 6/13/24 10:43, Michael S wrote:

On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:53:54 +0200
David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

...

I know more than most C programmers about how certain C compilers
work, and what works well with them, and what is relevant for them -
though I certainly don't claim to know everything. Obviously Bart
knows vastly more about how /his/ compiler works. He also tends to
do testing with several small and odd C compilers, which can give
interesting results even though they are of little practical
relevance for real-world C development work.
>

>
Since he do compilers himself, he has much better feeling [that you
or me] of what is hard and what is easy, what is small and what is big,
what is fast and what is slow. That applies to all compilers except
those that are very unusual. "Major" compiler are not unusual at all.

>
The problem is that Bart's compiler is VERY unusual. It's customized for
his use, and he has lots of quirks in the way he thinks compilers should
work, which are very different from those of most other programmers.

>
>

In
particular, compilation speed is very important to him, while execution
speed is almost completely unimportant, which is pretty much the
opposite of the way most programmers prioritize those things.

>
Compilation speed is important to everyone. That's why so many tricks are used to get around the lack of speed in a big compiler, or so many extra resources are thrown at the problem.

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What "tricks" ?

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Going to considerable lengths to avoid actually doing any compilation, or to somehow cache previous results (I mean things like .pch files rather than .o files).
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Have a look at any makefile.

 As I suspected, your idea of "tricks" is mostly what other people call useful or essential tools.
 I would use makefiles even if compilation was instant.  I /do/ use makefiles even when compilation is near instant.  I use them even if every run requires a full rebuild of everything.  I use them for all kinds of tasks other than compiling C - I first started using them for cross-assembly builds on DOS.
 The point of a makefile (or other build system) is twofold:
 1. Get consistent results, with minimal risk of sometimes getting the build process wrong.
 2. Save time and effort for the developer.
 It takes a special kind of dedication and stubborn, wilful ignorance to fail to see the benefit of build tools.  (make is not the only option available.)
 

>
If compilation was instant, half the reasons for a makefile and its dependency graphs would disappear.

 My makefiles would be simpler if compilation were instant, but they would be equally essential to my work.
 

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For the scale of programs I write, with the tools I use, compilation *is* more or less instant.

 Some of us write serious code, use serious tools, and use them in serious ways.

I understand. You can't take a product seriously unless it's big, and it's slow, and it's got lots of shiny buttons!
My company had the some problem once: I had a product that fitted onto one floppy disk, which seemed insubstantial. So it was supplied on a CD instead to make it seem bigger than it was (a CD had a capacity 500 times greater than a floppy).
However, I can paste here the result of running a C program. Could you tell whether it was built with a 0.2MB compiler or a 0.2GB one? Could you tell whether it was built in 0.1 seconds or if it took a minute?
Could you tell whether execution took 5 seconds or 10 seconds?