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SubjectRe: egcs-1.1.2 ping bug also causes miscompilation of pcbit isdn drive

On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 hagopiar@vuser.vu.union.edu wrote:

> > It just so happens that the kernel is _the_ code that most streches the
> > compiler, AFAIK. Breakage due to ill-understood features, usage of outright
> > compiler bugs and reliance on optimizations done a certain way (or not
> > done) does happen.
>
> I believe that the compiler itself is a larger code base, but it likely
> doesn't have as much hack work in it. :-)

no, the EGCS compiler codebase is smaller than the Linux kernel. The Linux
kernel is also fundamentally different from GCC, which makes it
fundamentally harder to write: inherent parallelizm is in every piece of
the kernel, interrupts, processes, SMP. GCC is a single-threaded piece of
code. The Linux kernel also _has_ to be fast and lots of work has gone
into optimizing it on the assembly level. GCC wants to be fast and memory
efficient to a certain level, but it's certainly only a second degree
parameter - generated code is much more important than compilation speed.
GCC also doesnt really have to deal with black boxes called 'hardware' and
'other systems'. Just to be balanced, GCC does have complexities which are
not present in Linux - obviously. But trying to put some simple hierarchy
between the source code of GCC and Linux is naive. Linux does lots of
lowlevel tricks nobody else does, but this is both a necessirty and a
_feature_ of Linux.

-- mingo


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