PROGRAMMER’S TOOLCHEST
Comparing C/C++
Compilers
It’s all about flexibility, portability, efficiency, and performance
Matthew Wilson
D
espite the advent of new programming languages and tech-
nologies, C++ is the workhorse for many developers, and
is likely to remain so for a long time to come. The main
reasons for C++’s prominence are its flexibility, portabili-
ty, efficiency, and performance. Yes, even with the increase in
processing power, software performance continues to be im-
portant, and C++ is a language that — when used correctly—
provides superior performance in virtually any context.
In this article, I compare nine popular C++ compilers in terms
of performance, features, and tools. The compilers are either ex-
clusively Win32 or provide Win32 variants. I conducted all stud-
ies on a Windows XP Pro machine (single-processor, 2 GHz, 512
MB) with no other busy processes. The compilers I examine are:
• Borland C/C++ 5.6 (C++ Builder 6). http://www.borland
.com/products/downloads/download_cbuilder.html
• Digital Mars C/C++ 8.34. http://www.digitalmars.com/
• GNU C/C++ 3.2 (The MinGW 2.0 distribution). http://www
.gnu.org/software/gcc/
• Intel C/C++ 7.0. http://intel.com/
• Metrowerks CodeWarrior 8.3. http://store.metrowerks.com/
• Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. http://shop.microsoft.com/devtools/
• Microsoft Visual C++.NET 2002 (VC++ 7.0).
• Microsoft Visual C++.NET 2003 (VC++ 7.1).
• Watcom C/C++ 12.0 (Open Watcom C/C++ 1.0). http://
openwatcom.org/
As for bias, I confess to having soft spots for DigitalMars, In-
tel, and CodeWarrior, all of which have helped me in creating
the STLSoft libraries (http://stlsoft.org/). Nevertheless, my day-
to-day tool of choice is not one of these.
Compilation Time
In many situations, compilation time is not important. However, it
is crucial on large systems or in development situations with fre-
quent builds (such as Extreme Programming). When compiling/link-
ing source, important factors include the number of inclusions,
use of precompiled headers, complexity of code, aggressiveness
of optimization (in both compilation and linking), and size of trans-
lation units. For this article, I considered these scenarios:
Matthew is a consultant for Synesis Software, as well as au-
thor of the STLSoft libraries and the upcoming Imperfect C++
(Addison-Wesley, 2004). He can be contacted at matthew@synesis
.com.au or http://stlsoft.org/.
16 Dr. Dobb’s Journal, October 2003
1. C1. A large (1000 functions) monolithic (no include files) C-
file (compilation only; no optimizations).
2. C2. A C file with a large number (500) of include files (com-
pilation only; no optimizations).
3. C3. A C file with a large number (100) of nested include files,
each of which is included by its prior file, and then by the
main file, thereby testing the effects of multiple inclusions
and include guards (compilation only; no optimizations).
4. pch. A suite of C++ files (main.cpp, pch.cpp, and 40 .h/.cpp
class files) sharing common header(s), facilitating precom-
piled headers (compile and link; precompiled headers; no
optimizations).
5. whereis. A single complex C++ file with several template
and operating-system library includes (compilation only; op-
timized for space). This tool provides powerful command-
line searching and is included as a sample in the STLSoft li-
braries, exercising much STLSoft code.
6. MMComBsc. A large (44 C and 37 C++ source files, 111 head-
er files, 80 KB in production) DLL providing COM functions
and classes (compile and link; precompiled headers; opti-
mized for space).
7. zlib. A free, general-purpose, data-compression library portable
across hardware and operating-system platforms.
I used Python scripts (available electronically; see “Resource
Center,” page 5) to generate the source files for scenarios 1– 4. The
source files are very large and not included with this article. The
whereis source is available at http://stlsoft.org/. (You can get the
most up-to-date binary from my company’s web site, http://
synesis.com.au/r_systools.html.) The source files for MMComBsc.dll
contain too many proprietary goodies for me to include here, so
you’ll have to take my word for the figures reported.
I used ptime (http://synesis.com.au/r_systools.html) to get the
results from scenarios 1–3 and 5 by executing multiple (15) times,
discarding the two-highest and one-lowest results, and report-
ing an average of the rest. This reduces distortion from caching
or startup. I executed scenarios 4, 6, and 7 using makefiles, tim-
ing the process via ptime. Table 1 presents the results.
The “Did Not Compile” (DNC) notation for CodeWarrior in
scenario C3 results from the compiler refusing to process the
nested include depth of 100; tests showed that 30 was the lim-
it. CodeWarrior help says, “To fix this error, study the logic be-
hind your nested #includes. There’s probably a way of dividing
the large nested #includes into a series of smaller nests”— which
is probably true, but may not always be so. Watcom could not
http://www.ddj.com
(continued from page 16)
compile the whereis and MMComBsc scenarios because it doesn’t
support templates sufficiently.
There are some significant differences — up to two orders of
magnitude in some cases — between performances. Borland
comes off best, closely followed by VC++ 6, with Digital Mars
and VC++ 7 about an equal third. CodeWarrior, GCC, and Intel
are the sluggards of the group. (Naturally, it’s not possible to cre-
ate a single objective comparison criterion, even if you have an
exhaustive set of scenarios. The way I’ve done it is to do three
rankings. First, positions 1– 9 are summed — lowest value wins.
Second, the first four positions are awarded 10, 7, 5, and 3
points — highest value wins. Third, the first three positions are
awarded 5, 3, and 1 points — lowest value wins. Only when these
rankings are in accord do I talk of “best,” “second,” and so on.)
VC++ and Watcom are streets ahead when precompilation is
appropriate — that is, when most or all of the source is C++. VC++
7 compiled the pch scenario 43 times faster than CodeWarrior!
Also, VC++ 7.1 is slower than VC++ 7.0 in every test.
Speed of Generated Code
Next, I looked at the speed of generated code, restricting my-
self to these five scenarios:
1. Dhrystone. This benchmark (http://www.webopedia.com/
TERM/D/Dhrystone.html) tests integer performance. Since it
is CPU bound (that is, there is no I/O or resource allocation
within the timed sections), it is a good test of pure com-
piled code speed. The performance is measured as number-
of-Dhrystones per second (a bigger number is better).
2. Int2string. Converting integers to string form can be a costly
business. Ten million integers (0=>9,999,999) are converted to
string form, and their string lengths summed (to prevent over-
optimization). The two approaches I used employ different
mechanisms for conversions:
• The compiler library’s sprintf( ). This performance reflects
the difference in the efficiency of the compilers’ libraries.
(Intel uses VC++ 7.0 libraries.).
• STLSoft’s integer_to_string<> template function (see my arti-
cle “Efficient Integer To String Conversions,” C/C++ Users Jour-
nal, December 2002). This inline template derives the string
form empirically, so performance directly reflects the com-
piled code’s performance.
3. StringTok. This generates a large set of strings to tokenize,
using “;” as the delimiter. It tokenizes the string, then iterates
over the sequence totaling the token lengths. (It avoids over-
optimization by the compiler, but maintains consistency of test
data between compilers by pseudorandomizing based on the
Win32 GetVersion( ) function, which returns the same value for
all programs because they’re run on one test system.) I used
the boost::tokenizer<> (http://boost.org/) and stlsoft::string_to-
keniser<> (http://stlsoft.org/) tokenizer libraries.
4. RectArr. To really hammer the ability of compilers to gener-
ate efficient code in complex template scenarios, I used STL-
Soft’s fixed_array_3d<> 3D rectangular array template. I pa-
Scenario Borland CodeWarrior Digital Mars GCC
rameterized a value type of stlsoft::basic_simple_string<char>
instead of std::ba- sic_string<> to promote effects of compil-
er efficiency and reduce differences in their respective stan-
dard library implementations. The scenario creates a variable-
sized 3D array, (100×100×100) and iterates through all three
parameter ranges, assigning a deterministic pseudorandom val-
ue to each element. Two approaches are performed.
• The first approach conducts this enumeration once.
• The second approach does it 10 times. Thus, the cost of al-
locating and initializing the 1 million members is amortized
(and thus diluted) in the second variant, focusing instead
on the costs involved with the array (template) element ac-
cess methods.
5. zlib. This is a library featured in many applications (http://
zlib.org/). It seemed a valuable, and uncontrived, performance
test. The test program memory maps a given file, memory maps
a corresponding output file, and then, within a timed loop, com-
presses the entire contents of the source file. I compiled both
zlib 1.1.4 source and the test program with the nine compilers,
and executed it on both large (65 MB) and small (149 KB) files.
Other than the Dhrystone scenario (the implementation I
used has its own internal measurement mechanism), all sce-
narios derive their timing behavior from WinSTL’s perfor-
mance_counter class (see http://winstl.org/ and my article
“Win32 Performance Measurement Options,” Windows De-
veloper Network, May 2003; http://www.windevnet.com/
documents/win0305a/), which times the appropriate internal
loop. Each has a warmup loop so that the results reflect pure
code performance, rather than being influenced by operating
system or other effects. All scenarios were optimized for speed
(-O2, -opt speed, -o+speed, -O3, -O2, -O2, -O2, -ot). Table
2 presents the results.
Except for the Dhrystone scenario, I executed within a cus-
tom test harness that ran them nine times, discarded the high-
est and lowest times, and averaged the remainder. The source
code for all scenarios is available electronically.
The “DNC” for Digital Mars is because Digital Mars is not sup-
ported in Boost 1.30, which I was using. Boost/Digital Mars
compatibility is underway, and may be complete as you read
this article. The multiple DNC entries for Watcom reflect its gen-
eral lack of template support.
Intel is streets ahead of the rest, being fastest in two scenar-
ios and second in five. (Indeed, its only poor performance is in
the Int2String(sprintf) scenario, in which its performance is heav-
ily dependent on VC++ 7.0 run-time library’s sprintf( )). Second
come Digital Mars, VC++ 7.0, and VC++ 7.1, all about even. Con-
sidering that Digital Mars has the Boost no-show, it’s a cred-
itable overall performance.
By virtue of its no-show in five scenarios, and very poor per-
formance in two others, Watcom takes the wooden spoon. How-
ever, it wins the Int2String(sprintf( )) scenario, so things aren’t all
bad. Borland and CodeWarrior do well in a few—Borland is quick-
est in zlib (large)— but let down in other areas. GCC performs
badly all around, except for the two STLSoft variants.
Intel VC++ 6 VC++ 7 VC++ 7.1 Watcom

C1 60 685 308 1368 4095 214 229 243 2781

C2 314 1680 412 886 1994 261 587 1640 687
C3 62 DNC 65 182 305 75 137 336 129
pch 21,203 113,328 16,921 39,234 16,578 3812 2656 3343 4625
whereis 937 3441 2243 3261 3004 1098 1401 1523 DNC
MMComBsc 35,250 158,078 29,828 DNC 80,593 39,390 41,921 45,250 DNC
zlib 1187 5859 1828 4890 4593 1984 2250 2703 1250

Table 1: Compilation times (in ms) of the seven scenarios for the range of compilers. (Figures in bold are best results.)

18 Dr. Dobb’s Journal, October 2003 http://www.ddj.com

 It’s worth noting the differences between the variants of the
Int2String and StringTok scenarios. Using STLSoft’s inte-
ger_to_string<> template provides significant performance ad-
vantages, with execution times being between 15 and 55 per-
cent of those of sprintf( ). The string tokenizers exhibit
considerable differences: The execution time of STLSoft’s tok-
enizer is between 6 and 26 percent of Boost’s.
Size of Generated Code
Execution speed is not always more important than size, nor
do speed optimizations always provide faster executing pro-
cesses, since larger code is more likely to undergo cache miss-
es and require consequent virtual memory activity by the op-
erating system. (I always optimize for size, and only for speed
based on the results of testing. I’m in good company. In De-
bugging Applications for .NET and Windows, John Robbins
reports that Microsoft optimizes for size on all operating sys-
tem components.)
Scenario Borland CodeWarrior Digital Mars
In any event, you always prefer smaller code. In Table 3, which
focuses on module size, VC++ wins hands down. VC++ 7.0 pro-
duces the smallest code, followed by VC++ 7.1, and then VC++
6.0. Intel, Digital Mars, and Watcom acquit themselves reasonably
well, taking one scenario each. Borland and CodeWarrior don’t
do too badly, except where it really matters in the one sizable,
real-world project. The jaw-dropping miscreant is GCC, with mod-
ules up to 10 times the size of the leader in some scenarios.
Language Support
Compiler support for language features is also important. Since
there are a huge number of features that are (not) supported
by modern C++ compilers, I focus on those I know of and am
interested in; see Table 4.
Having wchar_t as a built-in keyword is not that important,
since it can be easily, portably, and robustly synthesized via the
preprocessor— usually with a typedef from unsigned short;. How-
ever, this does reduce overloadability. The _ _ func_ _ predefined
GCC Intel VC++ 6 VC++ 7 VC++ 7.1 Watcom

Dhrystones/s
Dhrystone 1,847,675 1,605,696 2,993,718 2,496,510 2,606,319 2,490,718 2,263,404 2,450,608 484,132

time (ms)
Int2string a (sprintf()) 7642 5704 5808 7714 7933 9419 7802 7813 5539
Int2string b (STLSoft) 3140 1289 3207 1679 1156 1624 1808 1843 DNC
StringTok a (Boost) 4746 3272 DNC 6809 1450 2705 2641 2341 DNC
StringTok b (STLSoft) 636 809 280 385 382 579 383 406 DNC
RectArr (1 iteration) 1082 910 997 1590 859 915 824 887 DNC
RectArr (10 iterations) 6922 3168 5589 3853 1649 1995 1533 1828 DNC
zlib (small) 92 110 88 92 87 87 91 78 90
zlib (large) 8412 12,550 8847 11,310 9390 10,875 10,266 9117 15,984

Table 2: Execution times (in ms) of the nine scenarios for the range of compilers. (Figures in bold are best results.)

http://www.ddj.com Dr. Dobb’s Journal, October 2003 19

 identifier is nice for debugging infrastructure, but again, there
are workarounds.
The importance of floating-point precision is not as easily dis-
missed (see “How Java’s Floating-Point Hurts Everybody Every-
where,” William Kahan and Darcy, http://http.cs.berkeley
.edu/~wkahan/JAVAhurt.pdf). Only Borland, Digital Mars, GCC,
and Intel (with option -Qlong _double) provide long-doubles
that match the Intel architecture’s 80-bit capabilities. For serious
numerists, this will be important.
Static assertions are also important, since they facilitate
checking of invariants at compile time, rather than run time.
They are based on the illegality of zero or negative array di-
mensions (int ar[0];, for example) and are usually wrapped
up in a macro such as:
#define stlsoft_static_assert(_x)
do { typedef int ai[(_x) ? 1 : 0]; } while(0)

The Digital Mars is the only compiler that does not support
them, although it will do so from Version 8.35 onwards. Note
that neither Borland 5.5(1) or 5.6 are able to optimize them out
of code, leading to performance costs.
Variable-length arrays (VLAs) and dynamic application of the
sizeof operator are C99 features. Only Digital Mars and GCC
support them. Except for VC++ 6, all compilers support covari-
ant return types.
Koenig lookup is a useful mechanism (see my article “Gen-
eralized String Manipulation: Access Shims and Type Tunnel-
ing,” C/C++ Users Journal, August 2003), whereby operations
associated with an element from one namespace may be auto-
matically accessed from another without namespace qualifica-
tion. VC++ (6 and 7), Watcom, and, except with nondefault pa-
rameter, Intel, do not support this.
The for-scoping rules were changed in C++.98 (ISO/IEC C++
Standard, 1998), and all compilers except VC++ 6 and Wat-
com support the new syntax. Interestingly, Intel gives a warn-
ing when used correctly, but in a way that would fail to com-
pile under the old rule. (In my opinion, you should never
write code that relies on either old or new rules, so this should
not occur in production code. This warning is useful to avoid
doing so.)
All the remaining issues involve templates. Though it does
have some template support, Watcom fails on all remaining tests.
VC++ 6 and 7 fail on the important facility of partial specializa-
tion, although Version 7.1 provides full support.
One VC++ 6 weirdness is that it won’t accept the typename
qualifier within the default parameters of a template, something
other compilers (GCC and CodeWarrior, for example) mandate.
You must resort to the preprocessor to support them all. (Con-
formance masochists can check out the definition of ss_type-
name_type_def_k in the STLSoft headers.)
Except for Digital Mars, VC++ 6.0, and Watcom, all compil-
ers support template templates. This technique isn’t currently
widely used, but is useful and will be more so in the future. Fu-
ture compilers need to support it.
Overall, GCC is the clear winner. Since I think static asser-
tions, 80-bit floating-point, and Koenig lookup are more im-
portant than VLAs and _ _ func_ _, I would put Borland sec-
ond, CodeWarrior and VC++ 7.1 third, Digital Mars fourth, and
Intel fifth. I would rate all of these as good compilers. Next
come the other VC++s and Watcom. Once the next version of
Digital Mars is released, it will likely have a perfect score, too.
However, you can expect likewise from other vendors soon,
since language conformance has become a marketable fea-
ture once more.
One feature not included in Table 4 involves typedef templates
(see “The New C++: Typedef Templates,” by Herb Sutter, C/C++
Users Journal, December 2002), which none of the compilers

20 Dr. Dobb’s Journal, October 2003 http://www.ddj.com

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support. VC++ 7.1 does report that “error C2823: a typedef tem-
plate is illegal,” which suggests Microsoft intends on supporting
it soon, possibly in Version 7.2.
Features
The Standard Library. Except for Digital Mars and Watcom,
all compilers support the C++.98 Standard Library without ma-
jor problems. Digital Mars C++ comes with both SGI’s STL and
the latest STLport (http://www.stlport.org/), but has yet to up-
date to the new header names (<iostreams> rather than
<iostreams.h>) and to have things declared within the std name-
space. Both compilers are working toward full conformance.
ATL. As far as I know, all compilers other than GCC and Wat-
com support ATL, although I suspect that some only support
Version 3, not 7. I’m not aware of any language-support issues
preventing GCC from supporting ATL, but I haven’t tested this.
I am certain that Watcom could not support ATL, because of its
current template deficiencies.
Boost. Boost is a library suite supported by all the compilers
except Digital Mars (where support is coming), Visual C++ 6 (which
has limitations), and Watcom (which is not supported at all).
Managed C++. Only VC++ 7.x supports Managed C++. In the
context of this article, however, Managed C++ isn’t a bona fide
feature because Managed C++ is not C++, any more than C is C++.
MFC. Despite showing its age, MFC is a widely used (and occa-
sionally useful) framework. It is fully supported by Visual C++, In-
tel C++, CodeWarrior, and Digital Mars. I also understand it is avail-
able with Borland C++ Builder, though I have not used it with that
compiler. To my knowledge, neither Watcom nor GCC support MFC.
STLSoft. Except for Watcom, all compilers support most of
the STLSoft libraries, and even Watcom supports a sizable part
(where the templates are within its capabilities). STLSoft is bun-
dled with Digital Mars 8.34 upwards.
Scenario Borland CodeWarrior Digital Mars GCC
Win32/Platform SDK. All the Win32 compilers support the
Win32 API (including many Microsoft language extensions,
such as _ _declspec( )), although some do not support the ver-
sion that comes with the Platform SDK (various constructs —
including inline assembler — are not recognized). Specifically,
GCC and Watcom do not support the February 2003 version of
the Platform SDK.
16-bit. Both Digital Mars and Watcom support 16-bit targets.
Demand for this is low; but if you need it, it’s good to be able to
get it somewhere.
WTL. I recently did some work to get various compilers
(including VC++ 5!) to work with WTL, but have not reached
a definitive conclusion as to support. What I can say is that
VC++ and Intel work with it out- of-the-box, CodeWarrior
with a little work, and Borland and Digital Mars with a fair
bit of effort.
I’d like to mention one thing I’m fond of— the Digital Mars -wc
flag— which warns about all C-style casts within C++ compila-
tion units. This is great when sifting through code to find areas
that need “modernizing.” (Also, the author of the Digital Mars
compiler added this feature on my request, and did so within
an amazingly short turnaround.) It would be nice to see this in
other compilers.
Tools
Most of the compilers come with Integrated Development and
Debugging Environments (IDDEs). Since editor/IDDE pref-
erences are nearly as religious as those for bracing style, I
couldn’t hope to do a balanced job — even if I knew all the
salient features of each environment. While I have some ex-
perience with all the IDDEs, and can say that they all pro-
vide the minimum functionality required to create/edit pro-
jects and source and debug executables, some are (to be
candid) pretty basic. The Digital Mars and Watcom IDDEs
Intel VC++ 6 VC++ 7 VC++ 7.1 Watcom

Dhrystone 60,416 57,344 53,788 98,118 49,152 45,056 45,056 45,056 47,616
Int2string a (sprintf()) 56,320 57,344 40,476 95,282 40,960 40,960 36,864 40,960 33,792
Int2string b (STLSoft) 56,320 57,344 40,476 95,953 40,960 40,960 36,384 40,960 DNC
StringTok a (Boost) 78,336 69,632 DNC 458,004 65,536 57,344 49,152 53,248 DNC
StringTok b (STLSoft) 68,096 65,536 43,036 453,945 53,248 53,248 45,056 49,152 DNC
RectArr 64,512 65,536 43,548 100,343 31,744 45,056 40,960 45,056 DNC
zlib (small) 75,776 86,016 83,484 151,916 65,536 61,440 53,248 57,344 81,408
MMComBsc 214,528 245,760 138,780 DNC 98,304 90,112 102,400 102,400 DNC
Table 3: Size of modules (in bytes) of the eight scenarios for the range of compilers. (Figures in bold are best results.)
Feature Borland CodeWarrior Digital Mars GCC Intel VC++ 6 VC++ 7 VC++ 7.1 Watcom

wchar_t keyword No No Option* Option* No

__ func__ predefined identifier No No No No No No
80-bit long doubles No Option* No No No No
static (compile-time) assert Not optimized** No
static array size determination No No
Variable Length Arrays No No No No No No No
dynamic sizeof No No No No No No No
Covariant return types No
Koenig lookup Option* No No No
new for scoping rules No Option* Option* No
typename (template arg) No
typename (qualifier) No
typename (qualifier in template No No
default parameter)
member template fns No
member template ctors No
member template classes No
template partial specialization No No No
template templates No No No
Table 4: C/C++ language features supported by the range of compilers. (* Available via a nondefault compiler option;
** Not optimized out in release builds.)

22 Dr. Dobb’s Journal, October 2003 http://www.ddj.com

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aren’t going to pry many programmers from their favorite en-
vironments.
Perhaps anachronistically, my editor of choice is the Visual
Studio 97 IDDE, which I use because I know the keystrokes, can
write some useful wizards/plug-ins/macros, and it’s quick, doesn’t
require the use of the mouse, can debug, and doesn’t crash. I
have experience with the IDDEs of C++ Builder, Digital Mars,
CodeWarrior, and Visual Studio 98, and .NET, and they either
have too many or too few features, crash, or make me take my
hands off the keyboard. Nonetheless, I know people who swear
by them, so it’s a case of to each his own.
Conclusion
Clearly, you cannot simply say compiler X is superior to all oth-
ers. Most compilers are superior to others in one or more respects.
• Borland is the fastest compiler, has good language support,
and doesn’t shame itself in any other regard. Though it’s not
one of my compilers of choice, it has value to contribute in
its good warnings. However, it seems to share VC++’s predilec-
tion for internal compiler errors (ICEs) when things get too
hard for it, which I find annoying.
• For me, CodeWarrior is the last word in language rules, con-
formance, and error-message readability— and it is invoked
whenever another compiler balks at something I’ve written
that I think should be okay. Moreover, it has a good (though
not great) IDDE, produces reasonably efficient code, and has
support for all the popular libraries. It would be the compil-
er I’d chose if I could only have one.
• Digital Mars comes off very well, featuring in the top three for
language support, compile time, and execution speed. (It’s
24 Dr. Dobb’s Journal, October 2003
about fourth on execution size.) For now, it is let down by
nonstandard Standard Library support, the occasional ICE, and
an outdated IDDE— but it’s free and you get such good ser-
vice from its developer that these things are forgivable.
• GCC has the best language support, which is commensurate
with its having the widest collaboration of any open-source
(and probably commercial as well) compiler in the business.
However, this may also account for its poor efficiency char-
acteristics. On my tested scenarios, it proved to be the slow-
est compiler, and produced the slowest and fattest code. (This
can be contrasted with Digital Mars, which is written and main-
tained by one person.)
• For speed of generated code — which is often the most im-
portant factor — Intel reigns supreme. It does well on the
size of generated code, although it is let down somewhat by
compilation speed. It scores well on language issues, al-
though getting it to listen to warning-suppression commands
is sometimes a trial. It does not have any kind of IDDE, but
plugs into Visual Studio (98 and .NET) without problems,
other than that precompiled headers and browse informa-
tion go to pot. I’m always surprised when I speak with clients
who are writing performance-sensitive software in a Microsoft
environment (Win32 systems, Visual Studio) and yet have
not considered using the Intel compiler. It’s definitely an es-
sential part of a programmer’s armory.
• Visual C++ does better than I expected. It produces the small-
est code, is quick to compile, and does well in the perfor-
mance of generated code (though it’s still way off Intel’s per-
formance). It also, finally, has good language support; VC++
7.1 even discovered some typename qualification errors in the
STLSoft libraries that CodeWarrior and GCC missed. And, in
my opinion, it has the best IDDE by a country mile. It is/has
been badly let down by poor language support (now im-
pressively, though belatedly, addressed in Version 7.1), long
update cycles (it was five years between Versions 6 and 7),
ridiculous gigabyte install sizes, and by assumptions in the
compiler and the IDDE that you will be using Microsoft ex-
tensions, MFC, and so on. Furthermore, there are too many
ICEs for my liking (even one should be an embarrassment),
which makes you question how much testing goes into it. Fi-
nally, WTL should be a fully supported part of Visual Stu-
dio.NET, wizards and all.
• Watcom is poor on template support, which made it hard to
give it a fair comparison with all the other compilers. It did
well in the areas in which it featured, although Dhrystone per-
formance was extremely poor. I hope it will continue to de-
velop in its Open Watcom guise, and return to the glories that
were Watcom C/C++ in the mid ’90s.
All C++ professionals and organizations should use more than
one C++ compiler at all times. No compiler provides all the pos-
sible useful warnings, so compiling with multiple compilers af-
fords much more comprehensive coverage. Furthermore, there’s
nothing better for making your code port-prepared than making
it work with more than one compiler. Particularly bad in this re-
gard have been the Borland and Visual C++ compilers. Many
times, I’ve built substantial projects that have worked well in one
of these compilers, only to find in porting that I’ve done non-
standard things, and even had bugs. So, I would recommend that
all C++ developers modify your work environments to incorpo-
rate three or four compilers; you’ll find your code quality rises
sharply. Given that many of these compilers are free — Borland
5.5(1), Digital Mars, GCC, Intel (for Linux), Watcom — it seems
remiss to do otherwise.
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