<story><title>A History of C Compilers – Part 1: Performance, Portability and Freedom</title><url>https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/a-history-of-c-compilers-part-1-performance</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>WalterBright</author><text>The article neglects to mention Datalight C, the first C compiler using data flow analysis optimizations. It did such a good job that the magazine reviewers decided it was cheating by deleting the meat of their benchmark codes. What actually was going on was the benchmark code was proven by DFA to do nothing, so was removed.&lt;p&gt;Within a year other compilers started doing DFA.&lt;p&gt;The article also neglects Zortech C++, the first native code generating C++ compiler. ZTC++ was the catalyst that made C++ a major language, as the PC was where 90% of the programming was. Before ZTC++, C++ and Objective-C were neck and neck, judging from the volume on comp.lang.c++ and comp.lang.objectivec. With ZTC++, the volume of the former exploded, and Objective-C disappeared into oblivion (later resurrected by Apple for a while).</text></comment>
<story><title>A History of C Compilers – Part 1: Performance, Portability and Freedom</title><url>https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/a-history-of-c-compilers-part-1-performance</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mannyv</author><text>This totally neglects to mention that the commercial c compilers kicked gcc&amp;#x27;s ass when it came to performance. Sun&amp;#x27;s cc and and IBM&amp;#x27;s xlc were substantially better across the board, and I know the latter supported profile-based optimization.&lt;p&gt;There were also a bunch of commercial c compilers, all of which I&amp;#x27;ve forgotten.&lt;p&gt;gcc was the lowest common denominator compiler, with the benefits and drawbacks of being in that position.&lt;p&gt;In any case gcc won the *nix compiler wars because it was free and easily accessible. Getting a license for the commercial compilers took work and&amp;#x2F;or funds, and the latter was something most unix users didn&amp;#x27;t have.</text></comment>