From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d6f7b92fd11ab291 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-07-16 16:14:58 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!xmission!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!news-in-maxim.spamkiller.net!news.he.net!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!elnk-pas-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!harp.news.atl.earthlink.net!not-for-mail From: Marin David Condic Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Crosspost: Help wanted from comp.compilers Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 19:14:48 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Message-ID: <3F15DC68.8090907@noplace.com> References: <1058275843.720814@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <3F158832.1040206@attbi.com> <1058378673.35463@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: d1.56.b4.a6 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 16 Jul 2003 23:14:57 GMT User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:40363 Date: 2003-07-16T23:14:57+00:00 List-Id: John: You're blocking. Tell us how you *really* feel. :-) Here is a pretty valid point: Compilation time just isn't that big a deal these days. Recompiling the world on even a fairly large project just doesn't take that long. Not when compared to the overall development time. And the engineers almost always have something useful to do while waiting for the results of a recompile anyway, so what is the worry? Are we going to wear out the processor by making it execute a few million unnecessary instructions per second? Do we have to pay it by the module? Does it get bored, tired and lazy and want to quit unless you give it a pay raise? In my experience, not very often. So buy lots of really fast processors and let them have at it. They are enthusiastic and will work really hard even if you don't give them an "Atta boy!" very often. In my experience, what seems to take a long time on a major recompile is when errors have got into the code and the compile is continually aborted mid-run so that some geek can go fix something he should have got right the first time, but didn't for any variety of reasons. (Mismatches between development and production versions of things are a typical culprit.) If it were not for having to stop and fix those errors, the compile time itself isn't really a slowdown of operations. At worst, you submit a batch job to run overnight and its done in the morning. Usually, it is nowhere near that bad - you run the compile and go clean up documentation while you wait for the results. Human multitasking tends to minimize any real issues about waiting for compilation. And even then, with processors and disks running as fast as they do, I just don't see that much wait time involved. In some ways, I prefer to shoot everything in the head and *force* a recompilation of everything under the sun. That way, I am absolutely sure that what got compiled was the latest and greatest of everything and there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that I got some old, out of date, object file into the build due to some quirk or defect in the software that does the recompile. Its cheap insurance. To that end, Ada's insistence on consistency checking - even if poor implementations are sometimes overly conservative - is a good thing. MDC John R. Strohm wrote: > Requiring recompilation is, IN THE PRESENCE OF GOOD SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, a > safety check that isn't going to cost THAT much, compared to the potential > cost of NOT recompiling. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ======================================================================