Slashdot Mirror
Does Linux Need Another Commercial Compiler?
Lurks asks: "My company, Codeplay, is set up to develop new and innovative compiler technology for the games industry. Our C compiler, VectorC, is a
cutting edge vectorizing compiler aimed at games and multimedia
applications that demand high performance generally through hand-optimized assembly. I'm writing to ask the
burning question on our minds, is it worth porting VectorC to Linux?
In fact, we're already targeting Linux as part of the PlayStation 2
version albeit not generating x86 code of course. A Linux port would see us converge this work with our Win32 compiler and such an
undertaking would certainly be popular with our Linux loving techies!
One caveat worth mentioning now is that the current version of VectorC is plain C only. 2.0 with full C++ compatibility is due early next year."
"Of course, commercial realities will rear their ugly head and we must consider that Linux isn't perhaps an obvious choice for a compiler aimed at games and multimedia applications. Given the certain degree of hostility towards commercial closed-source products of this nature, perhaps the idea should be consigned to the pet-project back burner for the future rather than rolled out as a commercial product?"
Do you mean converting your compiler to run under linux, or making it able to compile code FOR linux (and if so, under what platform).
IF it's a playstation/games developmetn compiler.... then the only reason to port it to linux is if you want to offer linux as a development environment for playstation games. Is it? What's the benefit?
Today, there are 2 compilers that are well known - GCC which is the default and most used on Linux, and Intel's ICC which is a commercial, but there is a free non-commercial version available from Intel. So far I have heard mixed reports from people about ICC effiency in terms of code generated, speed of binaries, size of binaries etc (slashdot users who use ICC - please post your conclusions).
Now - the next big compiler that will come out (commercially) is from Borland. Early reports from various testers suggest their C/C++ compiler is kicking both ICC and GCC in the ass, but again - I belive it when I see the numbers, although Borland got a reputation of isssuing quite fast compilers..
So - if you decide to release a compiler, you'll need to think about 3 points:
1. GCC compatible - you'll need it if you want to be used by open source users OR to allow developers to move their apps which used GCC to your compiler.
2. A free version (free as a beer) - in order to be really accepted and widely used by Linux users, you'll need to issue a free version for the developers to use. Intel learned this quite since the beginning that if they want their compiler to be accepted by the Linux users - they'll need to release a free version. Borland is rumored to release a free version also with their upcoming C/C++ compiler (command line version, not the GUI)
3. Competition - well, not much to say here, but you got companies like: Borland, Intel, and the GNU GCC, along with the Portland group's compiler, code warrior (Metrowerks) - plenty of competition. do you really want to get in?
Hetz (Heunique)
Porting this to linux seems to be a good idea, but the inherent problem is your business model. Who is your target audience? Are you targeting corporations such as lokisoft who will use your compiler to port/create games for linux?
(side note- the lokisoft page is down, i dunno if that is a fluke, if i have the wrong URL, or if they've packed up and left)
The problem is that if you target corp.'s like loki, you may not be able to sell enough units, or whatever, to justify the cost of porting. These linux gaming companies seem to fold faster than omlettes at waffle house.
If on the other hand, you just ported it and released it at random into the linux/OSS community, you would be doing the community a favor, and independant cells of programmers could attempt to port/write games for linux.
The problem with this solution is also the cost: If you release it open source for linux, you would be somewhat of a hero, or philanthropist, to the OSS community; however, you may not be able to justify the cost of porting it, if your idea is to make money by porting to linux.
I guess it depends on what time frame you think you can port it to linux in - if it would take you and your team an extra two days of programming, it may be worth it, as both a PR move and a gift to the OSS community. However, if it will take extra months of coding, just bear in mind that philanthropy doesn't pay bills.
Don't mean to be cynical, but you have to consider each decision as it relates to the almighty dollar.
It sounds as if you're doing fantastic work, though, keep it up.
sig?
But I have a small warning for you: If your compiler really does produce awesomely better code in that particular area, then if that area becomes popular with the GCC crowd, you are going to see alot of work spent on optimization. In other words, your product may be a spur to make GCC competitive with VectorC.
And I would also point out that I think that if VectorC, available for Linux/someArch, does NOT stir the GCC developers to improve, then your specific market doesn't exist on Linux.
Really sucks: Either you eventually face competition with GCC, or your product bombs on Linux.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
I am developing an extremely authentic and highly innovative gaming technology for the information superhighway called SuperDuperGameAccelerator. It's really cool. It will accelerate games and cook your dinner too. I was wondering if it's worth porting it to Linux. In fact I'm already porting it to Linux, I just wanted to announce it to the world by posting on slashdot. You know, after the .com crash we can't get any more funding, so we could use all the free advertizing we could find. And I figured slashdot editors are too stupid to recognize the thinly disguised commercial...
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I do high-performance computing, and I'd love to be able to try out Vector-C on some of our P-4 and Alpha Linux clusters, if I could. Right now, we use Intel's icc or gcc on x86 and Compaq's ccc or gcc on alpha, respectively. Pretty soon we are going to be looking at Itanium as well. Some of the time we are hand-hacking assembly just like the game programmers are, which is kind of sad; we would rather be compiling C. What Mat Bettinson said is definitely the case: "micro based scientific computing is looking more attractive."
Despite what some ppl here are saying, it's not an issue if it can't compile the kernel, or if it's not 100% gcc compatible, because most of the things the high-performance computing applications I've seen don't need to spend a whole lot of time in the kernel. However, you do have to make it work with both 2.1 and 2.2 glibc (please please please). The hacks we came up with to make icc work on our glibc-2.2 RH7 boxes are ugly and fragile.
Language issues: C++ is almost never a big deal in HPC, but C/FORTRAN support is great. Having at least partial C99 support is best because then you get float *restrict foo, et al. Also, remember that not all HPC codes are fp. Some of us write integer intensive codes and/or memory intensive codes.
It's not an issue if it's not free-beer or free-software, because research grants will probably be happy to pay reasonable amounts for it -- maybe a couple hundred bucks, say -- but you have to remember that Intel is giving icc betas away for basically nothing, so you can't charge too much. This is not a troll, just trying to be realistic here.
Disclaimer: I am not speaking for my employers. I am not a person who gets to decide how grant money is spent (yet). These are just my opinions.
...when I spoke to your sales rep at GDC and Siggraph, he indicated that C++ wasn't ready, as you said. He also didn't think your symbol information would be compatible with VTune or the other standard Windows profilers and couldn't tell me of any test suites that your compiler had passed, though he named a couple which were "close." I wouldn't use a compiler which doesn't pass basic conformance testing, and I certainly wouldn't take on a new compiler if I don't know that I can profile its output to prove that its working.
When I tried creating some simple code and looking at the disassembly on the sample machine at Siggraph, the compiler choked on some valid code (it seemed confused by the critical 'volatile' keyword), and the assembly generated was extremely naive about cache use and couldn't even hoist redundant operations out of loop operations.
So far as I can see, I'm supposed to dump my compiler for something that lets me use half a dozen instructions I can get with inline assembly or Intel's _free_ compiler, where Windows is concerned.
Shouldn't you finish your tools and make them work on one platform before you go trying to pitch them on others? Have your tools really advanced so far in the last few months that you're ready to split resources?