Re: [ALACPP] GCC and friends

["Jon Stewart" <stew1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Jon Stewart wrote:
> > I've got a slackware 10 box with an encrypted RAID1 for /home, with every 
> > service shut down except for ssh. So data security and integrity is done.
> 
> Ugh... nothing will kill your compile times more than encrypted RAID. :-(


If I find that I'm getting disk-bound, I might throw in a fat wad of RAM. 
Right now I'm at 256MB on a 900MHz Duron. I'm running reiser 3.6 as my 
filesystem and a 2.6.7 kernel. The software raid and disk encryption is 
via the new device mapper way of doing things; cryptoloop seemed pretty 
scary. I've yet to do any serious profiling as I'm still working on 
low-hanging fruit (e.g. ccache). Running X is the single biggest thing I 
can do to kill performance (my graphics hardware sucks).


> For the record, I'm increasingly leaning towards Gentoo for C++ 
> development. Source-based distros avoid that whole mess of "which 
> version of g++/libstdc++ was it compiled with" behind.


Yes, I'm intrigued by Gentoo. I've tried using a couple of the package 
managers/distros for MacOS X (Fink, darwin ports), but I tend to end up in 
circular dependency hell. I don't particularly want to use a lot of 
applications, I want something that's pretty transparent so I can 
understand it, and I want something that's secure. Slackware has been a 
good distro for me in those regards. I have a pretty good handle on what 
my machine is doing. When I feel more comfortable with the build tools, I 
may move on to Gentoo.


> 3.4.1 has anumber of other nice features, including a much better parser 
> and an actually usable iostreams library (large file support *finally*).


Heh. You search engine folks with your large files.


> > I'm using subversion for source control (SO much better than CVS).
> 
> I'm partial to arch, but hey, anything is better than CVS.


I use SourceSafe at work, and I find that it is no worse than CVS on a 
day-to-day basis. Which is pretty sad commentary. :-)

Subversion seems to have the big 'Mo in the community. When I get to the 
point where I need better branch development support, then I'll reconsider 
my options (or if Subversion gets too slow, I'll switch to Perforce). I 
don't know why, but I always feel reassured when a piece of open source 
software has good, working Windows support, with a double-clickable 
installer, and quite a bit of documentation. It was pretty easy to get up 
and running; so far, so good.


> I always like to have a 2nd, good quality compiler. Intel's icc is 
> apparently available as "free for non-commercial use". I'd get that.


Noted.


> > Is distcc worth it (I would have to install a cross compiler as my
>  > other machine is a Mac)?
> 
> Setting up a cross compiler can be a pain, although Dan Kegel as a nice 
> how-to. That said, depending on the relative power of the other box, 
> distcc can be a huge win.


Yes, I stumbled upon Dan's page. I might have to try his tool out. I just 
had the native build of 3.4.1 fail on my Mac, so now I am feeling more 
determined to do this and solve it. If I could get my Mac to help out with 
linux-x86 builds, that would be a huge educational windfall, whatever the 
performance benefit. My iMac is roughly the same speed as my linux box. I 
have a relatively fast Dell laptop wending its way through our IT 
department.


> > Any emacs modules that are must-haves for C++ developers?
> 
> Some standard ones are speedbar, semantic bovinator, folding mode, 
> doxymacs, EDE, etc. Alternatives to speedbar include ebrowse, ECB (Emacs 
> Code Browser), OO-Browser, etags, or for the very brave... COGRE.
> 
> There's an EmacsWiki with a pretty comprehensive set of suggestions for 
> programmers to look at:
> 
> http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/CategoryProgrammerUtils


Cool! Thanks for the resource.


> If you have ccache and distcc setup, your compiles are quick enough that 
> you might want to look at flymake. I haven't used it yet as Emacs's 
> syntax checking goes a long way for me, but it sounds like the coolest 
> thing:
> 
> http://flymake.sourceforge.net/


Bitchen! I'm probably a little underpowered for that currently, but maybe 
for the laptop.


> > What about build tools, e.g. make? Am I still best off with make, due
>  > its ubiquity and simplicity,
> 
> Make + autoconf/automake is probably the right way to go.
> 
> > or can ant/bjam/custom python scripts/whatever offer me more (as 
> > subversion offers enough more than CVS to justify the upgrade)?
> 
> Honestly, bjam is really not impressing me. I've heard that Ant's 
> cpptask is getting there, but there is no substitute for a good make. ;-)


I've used ant before, and it's cool. But, yeah, not so much with the C++ 
support. I'm subscribed to boost-users, and their build environment seems 
to be a frequent source of errors for people. Part of this is a lack of 
organization, but I can't help but feel that part of it is a reliance on a 
non-standard build tool.


Jon
-- 
Jon Stewart                                 Advanced Los Angeles C++
stew1@xxxxxxxxxxx                           http://www.alacpp.org
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