On June 20, Jason R Thorpe wrote:
>  >   Shouldn't that relationship be a bit closer to linear?  Sure,
>  > there's a lot of, say, Pentium optimization crap in there...but is
>  > that even being executed when I run it on a VAX?
> 
> It's not a lot of "Pentium optimization", and if you think so, you're
> not very familiar with the internals of GCC (which, for your own sanity,
> is probably a good thing :-)

  No, I'm completely unfamiliar with GCC internals.  I apologize if my
comments suggested otherwise.  My "Pentium optimization" comment was
intended only as an example of something that won't be (or shouldn't
be) sucking cycles while compiling on a VAX.

> Yes, and the GCC people have realized that their compiler has become
> needlessly slow.  They are actively working on the problem.  If you
> are interested in seeing the NetBSD system compiler not become glacier-
> slow, then I suggest you assist them in this effort.

  I'm an accomplished programmer, but compiler technology isn't my
strong suit.  Perhaps there are some other areas of GCC's
innards...general non-compiler-related speedup techniques (hash tables
vs. searching arrays, that sort of thing) that might need some
attention, but I suspect issues of that sort would have been dealt
with long ago.

  It is good to hear that they're working on this problem.

> Some people (including myself) have put an awful lot of effort into GCC
> recently getting it in shape to be the NetBSD system compiler so that
> for the FIRST TIME SINCE THE NETBSD PROJECT STARTED, the stock FSF GCC
> will work out-of-box on NetBSD (which means that we'll be able to put
> effort into improving other parts of the OS rather than maintaining a
> pile of local changes to the toolchain).

  Oh WOW...that is VERY cool.  I had no idea that was happening.  That
will be great when it's all done.  Thanks for your efforts! :-)

       -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire                  "Needing a calculator indicates that
St. Petersburg, FL              your .emacs file is incomplete." -Joshua Boyd