4 ms·

gcc isn't exactly a "niche tool".

sigjuice 9y ago
How many people who buy an Apple computer need to install and run a C compiler? EDIT: BTW, it is trivial to install clang without Xcode on a pristine Mac. Just typing cc in Terminal will pop up an installer that will download and install clang (and possibly other tools)
- realusername 9y ago
  not everything needs to be used by the end-user directly. I bet gcc is used a countless amount of times just to build OSX anyway.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    OS X uses clang.
  - 4ad 9y ago
    Clang is used to build macOS and 99% of macOS/iOS applications, not gcc, and Apple maintains clang for you.
    - realusername 9y ago
      Ah my bad, I did not know that.
pjmlp 9y ago
It isn't the official compiler on Apple platforms either, that ship has sailed long time ago. Google has also shown the door to it on their OSes. Lovers of BSD licenses will miss FSF software in a couple of years.
- saurik 9y ago
  The really sad part is that as their freedom decreases they seem to just accept it as a new normal rather than as a cost that they chose to pay, and the people who know or even sometimes just remember things differently end up ignored as if they were ranting about some crazy impossibility.
  - IBM 9y ago
    FOSS religion is only going to fade as we get further from 90s Microsoft.
    - gcb0 9y ago
      obvious troll is obvious. specially with that username. lol. thanks for the laugh.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    Let's take a look at an alternate reality where Clang didn't exist, and GCC was the only compiler worth using–wait, we don't have to do that. Just look at Bash. It's neglected and stuck on 3.2.57 forever because Apple doesn't want to deal with GPLv3. Do you prefer that to the BSD-licensed solution that LLVM is, where it's still open source and actively maintained, rather than left by the wayside because Apple just refused to play nice?
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      The part you are overlooking are the contributions that OEMs stop doing, because thanks clang they no longer have to. Not everyone contributes back to LLVM thanks license. Just like the *BSD hardly see the same contribution from all those embedded devices, as Linux enjoys.
      - snuxoll 9y ago
        People using BSD licensed code have an incentive to contribute changes that aren't "secret sauce" to make maintaining their forks easier. Sony has pushed code they wrote for the PS4 back upstream to make keeping current with upstream easier, for example. Juniper still pushes patches upstream, and they've got a much larger team working on Junos than Sony does on Orbis.

How many people who buy an Apple computer need to install and run a C compiler? EDIT: BTW, it is trivial to install clang without Xcode on a pristine Mac. Just typing cc in Terminal will pop up an installer that will download and install clang (and possibly other tools)

realusername 9y ago
not everything needs to be used by the end-user directly. I bet gcc is used a countless amount of times just to build OSX anyway.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  OS X uses clang.
- 4ad 9y ago
  Clang is used to build macOS and 99% of macOS/iOS applications, not gcc, and Apple maintains clang for you.
  - realusername 9y ago
    Ah my bad, I did not know that.

pjmlp 9y ago

It isn't the official compiler on Apple platforms either, that ship has sailed long time ago. Google has also shown the door to it on their OSes. Lovers of BSD licenses will miss FSF software in a couple of years.

saurik 9y ago
The really sad part is that as their freedom decreases they seem to just accept it as a new normal rather than as a cost that they chose to pay, and the people who know or even sometimes just remember things differently end up ignored as if they were ranting about some crazy impossibility.
- IBM 9y ago
  FOSS religion is only going to fade as we get further from 90s Microsoft.
  - gcb0 9y ago
    obvious troll is obvious. specially with that username. lol. thanks for the laugh.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Let's take a look at an alternate reality where Clang didn't exist, and GCC was the only compiler worth using–wait, we don't have to do that. Just look at Bash. It's neglected and stuck on 3.2.57 forever because Apple doesn't want to deal with GPLv3. Do you prefer that to the BSD-licensed solution that LLVM is, where it's still open source and actively maintained, rather than left by the wayside because Apple just refused to play nice?
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    The part you are overlooking are the contributions that OEMs stop doing, because thanks clang they no longer have to. Not everyone contributes back to LLVM thanks license. Just like the *BSD hardly see the same contribution from all those embedded devices, as Linux enjoys.
    - snuxoll 9y ago
      People using BSD licensed code have an incentive to contribute changes that aren't "secret sauce" to make maintaining their forks easier. Sony has pushed code they wrote for the PS4 back upstream to make keeping current with upstream easier, for example. Juniper still pushes patches upstream, and they've got a much larger team working on Junos than Sony does on Orbis.