Rejuvenating the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler

Re:Rejuvenating the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler by AnimalMuppet on Friday September 25, 2015 @12:43PM (#10279187)

When I was in that situation (maybe ten years ago), we ran gcc on Aix, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, Tru64, SGI, and maybe a couple of others. Then of course there was Windows, which used the Microsoft compiler. But using only two compilers made the ten or so platforms easier to deal with. (There still was a bunch of code that was "#ifdef SGI/#else/#endif", and similarly for other platforms, but at least the compilers behaved the same.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Rejuvenating the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler by pjmlp on Friday September 25, 2015 @01:18PM (#10279378)

We had to use the vendor compilers, so no fun.

This was the only time period I used C instead of C++ at work.

However I do confess, the situation for C++ support was even worse, so although I am not fan of C, the decision made sense from business point of view.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Rejuvenating the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler by AnimalMuppet on Friday September 25, 2015 @01:29PM (#10279446)

How long ago was your experience? Was gcc an option at that time? Or did management require you to use the vendor compiler?

What we did was, we used the vendor compilers to compile gcc for a platform (or maybe used gcc to cross-compile itself, I forget). Then we used that gcc to compile gcc for that platform. Then we used the new gcc to compile gcc for that platform, and made sure that it was the same as the previous gcc. This wasn't easy - we had one guy that this is pretty much all he did for months. But it got us to a place where we were free from the vendor compilers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Rejuvenating the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler by pjmlp on Friday September 25, 2015 @01:57PM (#10279618)

> How long ago was your experience?

It was back in the first .com wave, so 1999 - 2002.

> Was gcc an option at that time? Or did management require you to use the vendor compiler?

Customers did. Our software needed to integrate with their existing toolchains.

At least for our customers gcc was not a serious compiler, given the license and being that funny open source thingy.

[ Parent | on HN ]