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> The cost of the compiler technology—which translates a program into machine code to run on high-performance systems—is rising, with recent estimates of tens o
by smitty1e 4y ago
> The cost of the compiler technology—which translates a program into machine code to run on high-performance systems—is rising, with recent estimates of tens of millions of dollars.
Really? What have they got that GCC can't munch?
- shoubidouwah 4y agofor fortran, the intel one (ifort) generally produces much faster binaries. The NAG compiler is known for having great warnings / quality control and pushes you to write better code. Both are available for windows compilation. I do not know the others, but GCC is very good if you do nothing performance critical (but then again you're writing fortran...), you want good but not great checks, and you do not need windows binaries. Everyone I met who writes fortran (mainly for quantum chemistry, solid state physics programs) uses multiple compilers to ensure the highest quality code.
- Qem 4y ago> for fortran, the intel one (ifort) generally produces much faster binaries. Unless you happen to have a AMD processor, then the Intel compiler will go out of its way to cripple performance. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30935064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30935064
- marshallward 3y agoI have not yet seen anything like this, but I have observed the Intel compiler produce different bytecode on Intel and AMD machines. In one case, the compiler would use masking vector instructions on Intel but not on AMD. It was also the correct decision: Those instructions have very low latency on Intel, but are many times slower on AMD. On each platform, it produced the best bytecode that it could.
- pjmlp 4y agoBesides sibling comment, more up to date ISO Fortran support.
- xioxox 4y agoI've encountered multiple compiler bugs in gfortran. The code wasn't very complex either - just a set of nested data structures.