Re: Embedded Processor/Compiler Selection

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

l.brashear@ACM.ORG writes:
>My standard response to such postings is to remind people of the Ada Compiler
>Evaluation System (ACES), a collection of performance and usability
>assessment tools, including analysis tools for comparing results from
>different configurations and for comparing results of related tests run on
>the same configuration.  If (especially) performance is important to you, and
>you have a pretty good idea of your requirements, then the ACES can be quite
>useful.  It's not particularly easy to use, requiring some time investment,
>but advice is available.  I'd start with the "Quick-Look" facility to cut the
>number of candidates down, then use the full ACES to compare the final 2 or 3
>candidates.


This advice from Phil, as one of the creators of ACES, is not a surprise :-)

But I have a question, has anyone successfully used the latest version of the
full ACES suite. We had a couple of customers look at using it and decide
it was far too much work. One customer used the Quick-Look facility, but
I would not base much on the results from this, since it is a rather
miscellaneous collection of tests.

Any set of canned benchmarks is always a bit dubious. I think you usually
do better to create some test cases of your own, trying to mirror your
intended application as closely as possible.