Nope. Wasn't true then, either. Found bugs in Lattice, gcc, egcs, Borland, Aztec, and probably a few more that I'm forgetting.
They're never common, but "it's never the compiler" doesn't apply either. It is, however, a helpful reminder that the most likely source of problems is with the author of the code :)
Re:“It is never a compiler error”
by TickleSteve on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @01:35AM
(#15701867)
Care to explain the "bugs" you found?
Obviously broken code generation, in the sense that the code provably does not behave as it should under the spec. Usually as a result of optimization gone wrong.
If you're asking for actual examples - sorry, you're out of luck. The 80's and 90's are a bit too long ago for me to remember details.
If you prefer to believe in the magically flawless compiler fairy, knock yourself out.
Re:“It is never a compiler error”
by BellsOnSunday on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @08:39AM
(#15703616)
Yep, I was going to comment that if you write your own compiler you'll find plenty of bugs, which is the same point.
Now everybody and their dog write compilers and transpilers for young and/or obscurer languages (I'd include Go and Rust in there), and with the immaturity of these environments compiler bugs are a fact of life.