On June 20, Matthias Buelow wrote:
> I'm certainly not going to defend gcc here but it probably boils
> down to the basic consideration of development cost (even in free
> software development, gcc has received funding from companies which
> were used to pay developers); doing the Right Thing as good as
> possible is probably a lot more expensive than just doing it in a
> way so that it works "well enough", especially if, in the case of
> gcc, "well enough" means "fast enough" on halfway current systems.
> I'm quite sure, though, that some people with really big projects
> would object to that, where even on the fastest machines,
> full compile cycles take hours or even days but then again they could
> probably afford compilers that better suit their needs.  Perhaps it's
> a "you get what you pay for" issue and I think what I get with gcc
> for what I pay for it isn't that bad.

  Point well taken.  The world wouldn't be nearly as nice if GCC
weren't around...I don't think anyone would dispute that.  But there
is definitely room for improvement.

    -Dave

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