There is no doubt that especially on Solaris, the Sun compilers are better than the GNU ones in terms of speed.
Sun have an interesting tool called 'Cool Tools - GCC for Sun Systems' http://cooltools.sunsource.net/gcc/porting.html which has has a GNU interface (and so takes GNU options), but the actual compiling is done with a Sun compiler. Intel make similar systems for Linux and OS X, http://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-compilers/ so one builds with a compiler which looks like gcc, but it is fact superior. There are two issues with the Intel system though * The Intel compiler is not free, unlike the Sun compiler. * I would suspect that gcc is better optimised for i386 than SPARC, so the advantages gained would be lower than on SPARC. (This is only a suspicion - I have not checked it). IBM do likewise http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/lnxpcomp/v8v101/index.jsp where is says a subset of gcc commands are accepted. My personal preference is to get rid of all these stupid GNUisms, so Sage is portable and works with any half-reasonable compiler. But these tools can't be discounted. I've got no idea of the cost of these Intel and IBM compilers. I suspect they are not cheap, but the Sun one is free. Dave --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
