(CC list trimmed.) Greg Hendershott wrote at 11/06/2012 10:22 AM:
It sounds like this is morphing into benchmarking C compilers?
I think architecting a compiler to target the wildly popular GCC, as the default configuration, is totally fair.
Sounds like Apple pulled a switcheroo, broke some optimizations by introducing bugs, didn't care, and consequently Gambit had to degrade gracefully.
Gambit needing a real (not fake) GCC to work best is different from vendor saying that they only get their best benchmark performance in utterly contrived machine configurations, running at a particular temperature during a particular phase of the moon.
BTW, I am a fan of Gambit. Gambit and Kawa were the main reason that I went to such pains to write portable Scheme for so long. I always keep Gambit in my back pocket, in case I ever run into a situation with really unusual requirements (e.g., a gazillion threads). Similar with Kawa, in case I ever really-really need to target the JVM. My strategy nowadays is to program for Racket, but know how to port to another excellent Scheme descendant if I ever have to. So far I haven't had to.
Neil V. ____________________ Racket Users list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/users
