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FPC 16-bit (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo Homepage, Usono, 15.05.2013, 22:44

> > > Why do you think that nearly none of the great compilers are also
> 16-bit
> > > hosted?
> >
> > Which ones are "great"? Please list them.
>
> Current great ones are LLVM, MSVC, GCC and Intel ICC. (me sucking his thumb
> here).
Clang + LLVM doesn't support Windows very well. (There are "experimental" MinGW builds, but not for x64, IIRC.) Even two of the others (MSVC, Intel) don't support Itanium anymore, so they're arguably getting worse! And of course, it has to be said: MSVC, Intel, Embarcadero are very very expensive!

My point is that they may be big, but they're not infallible, and they're certainly not universally useful (only pandering to a small niche ... with big pockets, presumably).

> > > > If you can't write something useful in 500 kb, you can't write
> > anything.
> > >
> > > Baseless claim.
> >
> > The largest 8086 instruction is six bytes. The largest 286 instruction
> is
> > 10 bytes. That is plenty of room for code.
>
> Yes. But I didn't say that you can't write anything useful in 500kb. I
> merely contested your statement that you can't write anything useful unless
> you can do it in 500kb
I didn't mean it like that. I'm not that naive. But if you (or your compiler) can't fit an extremely useful amount of code in 500 kb, you're sunk.

> Or simply limit portability to a few sane targets that make the bulk of the
> world, and consider "total" portability a fun academic thought experiment.
Be careful what you wish for. By download statistics alone, Windows far far surpasses everything else. Then comes Mac. Then much much further is Linux. Everything else is mostly ignored (including FreeBSD). If certain parts of the commercial world weren't so anti-GPLv3, FreeBSD wouldn't exist anymore.

> Or just brand one golden version on one platform every 5 years. Save it,
> and use it to jumpstart when necessary.
Apparently (with very few exceptions) no one does that.

> > > You misunderstood my point. It wasn't a dare to come up with even more
> > > outdated pascal stuff. It was a dare to explain why 32-bit (or 64-bit)
> > is
> > > so bad.
> >
> > It must be bad because nobody supports DJGPP (32-bit) anymore.
>
> Compared to what well supported 16-bit open source compiler?
I don't understand the question.

My point was that "32-bit POSIX isn't enough anymore." So it's not 640 kb, it's not stability, it's not lack of tools, and it's not lack of free/libre: people just don't freaking care anymore.

> > > Like with everything, such requirements change with the requirements
> of
> > the
> > > times. No I don't think there is a hard limit somewhere.
> >
> > If you need 1000x more processing power and RAM (and libs and tools)
> than
> > anyone else before you, you're either a). uber genius, or b). dumb as a
> > brick.
>
> That is like refusing to use a microwave because rubbing sticks together
> gets it done too.
Not refusing the hardware, refusing the requirements! It's too much, when will it end? You don't need 1.5 GB bandwidth just to download a compiler!! You don't need 2 GB for an OS!!

> > > Yeah. But while it is not universal, at least it can be used
> adequately
> > for
> > > certain tasks.
> >
> > Anything can be used for "certain" tasks. GCC 1.x was considered decent
> > too. Same as 2.x. Same as 3.x
>
> Yes. ALL FOR THE REQUIREMENTS OF THEIR TIMES !
What requirements changed? Do people eat 1000x more food? Pay 1000x more money? Speak 1000x more words?

> > BTW, in case you haven't noticed, a lot of changes have happened due to
> > indirect influence from Clang (written in C++), which is preferred by
> Mac
> > OS X, FreeBSD, Minix, and even Embarcadero.
>
> Bollocks. Even on LLVM's main targets, gcc still beats LLVM.
Only in very very minor ways (see below).

> I'm a LLVM sympathizer, and have regularly followed FreeBSD with LLVM
> meetings in the last years (mostly on FOSDEM)
AFAIK, FreeBSD 10 (x86, x64) will have only Clang. Ports will still prefer GCC 4.6.

> But that is from a license based (and GCC monopoly scare) perspective, and
> doesn't mean I shut my eyes for realities.
>
> LLVM's honeymoon is coming to an end. They have been promising great
> advancements due to superior architecture for nearly half a decade now, and
> STILL can't routinely match gcc in depth (performance on their main target
> architecture), let alone in width (number of targets)
No, it's still vibrant and ongoing. IBM recently contributed a bunch of patches for PowerPC and System Z. It's only approx. 7-15% slower there than GCC.

It's not overall performance that is a problem but the lack of existing cpu backend support (and pre-existing code that assumed nothing else would ever exist).

> The tide is changing, and they better start showing results soon, or even
> good PR and commercial friends won't save them, and the only thing in
> favour of them will be the license.
Apple, IBM, Intel (not ICC), Embarcadero, FreeBSD, Minix all use and support it. There's probably more groups than that, obviously. It's far from dying.

You didn't react, so I guess you already knew (or maybe not): Embarcadero uses (actually, sells) modified Clang as their BCC64. That doesn't sound like they need saving! Quite shocking to me to hear that but not realistically that surprising. (I just wish I understood how some of these people calculate their prices, it seems extremely arbitrary.) Yes, even your beloved Delphi is rumored to be migrating to LLVM. Then, worse performance or not, you're stuck! Enjoy your upgrade!

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