3 ms·

GCC vs llvm competition has been beneficial for C++, though

• nynx 5y ago
  And it's going to be beneficial for Rust too. Just there's no reason to have multiple frontends.
• cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  This is new, though. Back in the 90s and early 2000s the compiler situation for C++ held back the language because the intersection of features from the "standard" available through both MSCV and GCC wasn't ideal. Both were good compilers. But in different ways. Nowadays it's pretty trivial to get a codebase to compile across MSVC, GCC and Clang. Back then it was often weeks and weeks of work.
  • brundolf 5y ago
    This sounds like a social issue though (compiler teams cooperating and keeping things up to date). It seems like when you have a smaller number of implementations they tend to be more agile; look at the modern web browser landscape vs that of the 2000s, for example I'd bet that having exactly two implementations will be a good place to be
    • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
      Yes, it was definitely social at least in part because MS leadership at that time didn't see something like GCC as a legitimate partner to cooperate with. They wanted open source to go away. Things definitely changed in that regard later. I think you're probably right that two Rust implementations with a cooperative mentality would be a good thing in the long run.
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    On the contrary it fostered a development in C++ IDEs and .NET like frameworks, whose Qt and VCL are the only worthwhile survivors. As for your list, I never had many issues keeping a code compiling across MSVC, aCC, xlC, SunPro, GCC. In fact aCC on HP-UX 11 was the one that gave me more problems.