IBM Releases XL compilers for Mac OS X

Visigothe writes "IBM released their XL Fortran Compiler and XL C/C++ Compiler for OS X. The compiler is binary compatible with GCC 3.3, and has multiple levels of optimization, creating binaries that are much faster than their GCC-compiled counterparts." No prices are noted, and the planned availability date is January 16.

Comments

Pricing

[Erect Horsecock]

According to an Ars thread the XLC compiler will be $499 for a single seat license. WAY below the cost for the AIX versions.

Linkage

FASTER OS X?

[zulux]

What does Apple use to compile OS X - and if IBM get the Objective C sections woking properly, could Apple use the IBM comiper to get OS X to run faster?

Re:FASTER OS X?

[rmlane]

As mentioned by others, the majority of OS X is compiled by GCC.

The exception is Quicktime, which uses (and has used since well before OS X) a older, custom version of the IBM compilers. I believe, but am not 100% sure, that Quicktime has always used the IBM compilers on PowerPC CPUs.

This is very good news for Apple's science users, one of the real problems pushing Mac boxes into some markets has been the lack of a really good Fortran compiler. The performance boost for C/C++ code will also be appreciated.

As for a wholesale transition of OS X to the IBM compilers: next to no chance. QA of the transition would take far too long and absorb resources that could be better used on other improvements. It would also cause problems with the Open Source versions of Darwin, so expect the vast majority of OS X to remain GCC compiled.

That being said, I would expect that certain chunks will be transitioned, where it makes sense. The output of the IBM compilers is binary compatible with GCC, so you can recompile (and re-QA) chunks of the OS where you'll get a major improvment.

Quartz Extreme, CoreFoundation and AppKit spring to mind, but don't expect this to happen in 10.3 or 10.4, more like 10.5 or 11.0.

Re:Current compiler?

[Erect Horsecock]

What is MacOS X currently compiled with?

I'm not 100% sure but I seem to remember in the WWDC keynote Jobs saying it was built with gcc3.3 the version that ships with Xcode.

If so, the new IBM compiler would presumably speed up the entire OS somewhat if it were recompiled via IBM's compiler?

Ya probably. I was surprised that they implemented Vector support so quickly. XLC really shines on Floating Point code, but I'm really curious to see how well it handles Vector. Even if the whole operating system isn't compiled with xlc as long as the core libs and things like codecs for QT and other multimedia apps the speed up would be impressive.