NetBSD Bob <nbsdbob@weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> writes:

>> this trival case) that NetBSD-1.4.3 and NetBSD-1.5 w/gcc 2.91 seem to be
>> about on par with eachother.
>
>Well, yes and no.  They are supposedly the same compiler.  Yet,

Are you sure of that?  I am too lazy to check CVS logs now but
I think I remember reading "egcs-1.1.1 release" on 1.4 instead
of the following on 1.5:

gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314 (egcs-1.1.2 release)

and indeed, on 1.5 it doesn't show one particular compiler error
which it tripped over on 1.4 (on VAX).
Of course such a minor change (if it is one) "usually" doesn't
affect performance that much so maybe it's something with the
system still...
Another opinion thrown in, I don't think digging up the rotten pcc
corpse from its well-deserved peace is actually a good idea --
you'd not only had to get it running at all (with regard to
interfacing with the Gnu toolchain, and probably creating ELF at
all and debug output parsable by gdb etc.) and make it grok C89
and some gcc extensions but you'd also have to update it for C99
(the current Standard C, as defined in 1999), which we'd get in
for free by simply tracking gcc.  Also pcc doesn't do C++ (a minor
annoyance, to me at least, yet even some system utilities require
C++ (such as groff)) and there would be quite some work bringing
it up to gcc's diagnostics (which aren't very spectacular, compared
to other compilers, especially those using the EDG frontend, but
still) etc., etc.
Maybe writing a new compiler suite from scratch would be the best
idea but I don't currently know anybody who'd undertake such a huge
effort, when another working (mostly) and free (somewhat) compiler
is already available and maintained, even if it's huge and slow
and has a rich history of bugs.

mkb