Re: I wasn't expected that !

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: Carl Daniel [VC++ MVP] (cpdaniel_remove_this_and_nospam_at_mvps.org.nospam)
Date: 02/16/04 

Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 07:31:54 -0800

Jack wrote:
> Absolutely not misleading. Majority of occasional programmers will buy
> Standard version of the software. The enigmatic "non optimized
> compiler" is not very clear for those buyers, what they are getting
> into. Before I run those tests I would never suspect that it would
> mean almost doubling execution time if the programmer was using old
> "C" type coding style where all the declarations are put at the top of
> the function. I consider my test to be a very good warning for those
> people who like me are yet unaware of it. I would probably skip the
> purachase of the product if I knew beforehand that it behaves like
> this.

Your conclusions:

<quote>

Microsoft Visual C++ in the old MFC version is simply a piece of junk. It
performed poorly in most of the tests.
...
Microsoft Visual C++ 7.0 (Win32 MFC version).
It was unexpected to see, how this software, considered by many to be
professional standard of Windows programming, failed to perform well in most
of the tests that I run.
</quote>

First, there is no such product. The average reader, unless they study your
site thoroughly is going to read this as "Visual C++" (in general), not
"Visual C++ 7.0 Standard Edition targeting Win32 executables".

Second, the product you tested (not identified here, but only in a small
table on a distant page) is not considered to be the professional standard
of Windows programming by anyone at all. I understand that you're
disappointed in the performance of Visual C++ Standard Edition in your
tests, but this "conclusion" is nothing more than ignorant Microsoft
bashing.

> My experience with Borland was such, that the Standard version
> (which is called in Borland - Personal) was very decent but lacked
> many optimizing tools, components available in higher versions and had
> a restrictive license. But Borland compiler never behaved so badly
> depending on coding style. Niether does Microsoft C# Standard for that
> matter. You guys are lucky to have optimizing version of the compiler
> and that's good for you. But there are only handful of people ready to
> invest $1000 into the software used sparringly. For those folks my
> results are not misleading at all. They are in fact perfect warning to
> look into some other competitor products and competitive langugaes
> such as Microsoft own C# for example.

That may be. On the other hand, I wouldn't expect the casual programmer to
be terribly concerned about performance of their code. Most likely, they're
going to write such badly organized code that any improvement in compiler
optimization will be totally swamped by poor algorithm choices, poor data
structure choices, and so on.

There's a valid conclusion that your article can reach: If you're
interested in performance, don't use Visual C++ Standard Edition to generate
Win32 code. That's just a bit less inflamatory than saying it's "a piece of
junk", which it is not.

-cd

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Towards faster Python implementations - theory
    ... killer from an optimizing compiler standpoint. ... annotations from the programmer. ... Python also presents other challenges. ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: pointer one past malloc.ed memory
    ... Specifically, the compiler transforms: ... When not optimizing, the compiler ... to make this work (in Standard C). ... the system as a whole can still conform. ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: Bugs at my web site
    ... >> I don't think it's being maintained now, but given that Fortran 77 isn't ... >what might prove fatal with a new compiler. ... >that I think they are good traditional fortran, whatever some standard might ... guess at heart I'm still a scientist rather than a Real Programmer :-) ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: Append to screen IO
    ... any part of the standard, and could also in princible have been compiled ... as expected by another standard-compliant compiler. ... The original programmer who found it to ... their head in the sand to the extent that they are unable to see the ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: (long) An AES implementation for 32-bit platforms
    ... > because the author implied that it was, in referring to the C standard. ... >> wonder about your deduction procedure. ... Would it be C for a programmer that uses a C compiler ...
    (sci.crypt)