[geeks] Re: [rescue] Onyx, sparcbook, and PPro machines

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

> yes, but from what i hear (you may speak up on your own if you wish, but i
> won't stick you out there, you know who you are) GIMP compiles rather nicely
> with MIPSpro, as do quite a few other packages.  so it's worth a try, and hey,
> maybe if you have the time, take it to "port" programs to non-gcc compilers.

(...moving to geeks@, as this is becoming a software rant...)

GIMP, and most other strictly-GTK things compile very nicely with MIPSpro.
I'm fairly certain that my current install of the GIMP is a MIPSpro build.

If you ever want a good laugh, read the GCC info page "Invoking GCC", and
read why "-pedantic" doesn't mean "disallow any stupid GCCisms that might
lead to code that breaks with a Real Compiler".  The info page basically
admits that GCC isn't strict ANSI or ISO C, but it's "good enough" and
people shouldn't whine about it:

    "This option is not intended to be useful; it exists only to satisfy
     pedants who would otherwise claim that GCC fails to support the
     ANSI standard."

Nevertheless, I always compile with "-ansi -pedantic -Wall" on systems
that don't have a stricter C compiler.  It catches most of the
mind-numbingly stupid things I do from time-to-time, but MIPSpro will
invariably find more (switch() statements that don't cover an enum member,
fudged printf()/scanf() calls, etc.).

Speaking of strict C compilers... I used to work at a SAS Institute
Quality Partner (those of you familiar with SAS know how rare they
are--damn but I loved that job).  My then-boss mentioned that SAS had the
most stringent C compiler in the industry.  Unfortunately, it only runs on
S/390.  But, SAS runs on lots more platforms, and my boss informed me that
SAS has an incredible verification suite for determining if a C compiler
is "C enough" to keep SAS happy.

Googling for that verification suite turns up nothing.  I'd like to know
which compilers passed that suite on various platforms.  For example, I'm
fairly certain that neither GCC nor Visual C are on that list.  I'd feel
pretty good to have at least -one- of those compilers from that list handy
so that I can be sure that I won't have any portability problems at the
language-level.

--Jonathan