[cfe-dev] Clang vs Other Open Source Compilers

["C. Bergström"]

Douglas Gregor wrote:
>
> On Sep 15, 2010, at 1:43 PM, Dave Yost wrote:
>
>> Yes, EDG is commercial, but licensees do get full source.
>>
>> The Clang comparison page 
>> <http://clang.llvm.org/comparison.html> functions as a technical 
>> orientation to Clang, giving insight into differences in approach, 
>> interfacing, and completeness among major compilers. Another 
>> important function of the comparison is to help people considering 
>> switching from some other compiler (commercial or not) to Clang.
>>
>> These functions would be better served if EDG were included in the 
>> comparison.
>>
>> I suggest that the title of the comparison page should be changed to 
>> "Clang vs Other Compilers"
>>
>> The section for each compiler can mention the licensing terms.
>
> Frankly, I don't see any benefit to this. Commercial customers who 
> have the means to license a commercial front end are going to do a far 
> more in-depth analysis of the capabilities of the various front ends 
> (both free and otherwise) than the "biased" analysis we put up on our 
> web page. At best, this page provides a list of some of Clang's 
> advantages/disadvantages that they can weigh against a commercial 
> vendor's claims.
>
> It's worth describing Clang's advantages and disadvantages relative to 
> other open-source compilers because that's a completely different 
> market, where we're mainly competing for mindshare among volunteers 
> who want to do a little compiler hacking or want to build open-source 
> tools on top of a front-end, and for whom "open source" is the 
> first-order bit.
I wonder consider all consumers of the clang front-end to care about 
open source as their #1 order of business..  (This is my view and please 
feel free to ignore it..)

If I have time and interest we'll at some point run and report the 
results of..

C:
  Plum Hall
     Capacity
     expr
     expr_95
     expr_98
  Perennial C
     CVSA_AMEN
     CVSA_C90
     CVSA_C99
C++
  Perennial C++
     CCVS_P0
     CCVS_P1
     CCVS_P2
     CCVS_P3_4
     CCVS_P6_7

This will hopefully give a pretty good indication about where the 
front-end stands in terms of conformance.. (I realize clang wasn't 
written with C++03 in mind and our C++ suite may not give the best 
coverage)..  I can't predict the future, but I do wonder what the future 
business model of EDG will be..


Best,

./C