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GCC 4.0 Preview

Posted by timothy on from the dual-overhead-cams dept.

Reducer2001 writes "News.com is running a story previewing GCC 4.0. A quote from the article says, '(included will be) technology to compile programs written in Fortran 95, an updated version of a decades-old programming language still popular for scientific and technical tasks, Henderson said. And software written in the C++ programming language should run faster--"shockingly better" in a few cases.'"

5 of 684 comments (clear)

  1. GUI by stud9920 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Come on ! Visual C++ has had an IDE for what, twelve years ? and Borland C++ 15 ?

    Open source just does not cut it for any serious developer.

  2. Re:Latest Fedora-development has gcc 4.0 by andreyw · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    GCC 2.96, FYI. And yeah, apparently no... they haven't learned a thing.

  3. Mudflap and buffer overflows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    From TFA: GCC 4.0 also introduces a security feature called Mudflap, which adds extra features to the compiled program that check for a class of vulnerabilities called buffer overruns, Mitchell said. Mudflap slows a program's performance, so it's expected to be used chiefly in test versions, then switched off for finished products.

    I'm glad Mudflap is going to be built-in, but I think it's moronic to turn it off for finished products. Given a choice between safety from buffer overflows and a 5% speed-up, which would you choose for most of your software (desktop and server)? It's pretty obvious to me. I wouldn't even notice a speed difference of even 10% or 20% on most applications, but I sure would notice a buffer overflow that lets all my data get swiped.

    Why is a trivial performance gain more important than safety? I'll never understand this type of thought, but that seems to be how a lot of developers think.

  4. Re:Mudflap by dusanv · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    C doesn't have a screwed up pointer semantics. It is perfect for what it does. You probably just don't understand it. Where are you getting the 3 to 5 factor? Anything to back that up? And the few percent is from what language?

    I am getting sick when C-hating posts like this one get modded up. Seems to be happening all the time lately. I'm starting to meta-mod again.

  5. Shocking indeed by Salamander · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    If C++ will run "shockingly better" that necessarily means it was shockingly bad to start with. It's like when Microsoft came out with FAT32 and claimed it would give you more usable space...but didn't go into the details of how they'd been pissing away your space before. "Yeah, we suck less!" Where's that eye-roll punctuation mark when I need it?

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