Comments on: How to convince any C developer to dump gcc and use clang

By: Dmitrijs Ledkovs

Dmitrijs Ledkovs — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:57:17 +0000

From a package maintainer point of view. I only ever see plain text buildlogs from a buildfarm. And I would like a reliable compiler that can compile majority of software out there.

So for something like debian to switch from gcc as default compiler you would need to prove that clang doesn’t break ABI/API with respect to previously compiled code and that it is better somehow =) note gcc does c, c++, java, ada, fortran, obj-c, obj-c++ out of the box =)

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:27:42 +0000

I use gcc daily and often run into wrong and incomplete warnings. GCC 4.4 with -O3 has a habit of generating warnings where it can’t tell you where in the code they actually come from. GCC’s warning control is crap. And it’s not even possible to disable some warnings (e.g. the infamous memset arguments reversed warning). And every new version of GCC that comes out has some new ridiculous warnings that don’t do anybody any good. I use pretty much all the major commercial compilers (GCC, VC++, CodeWarrior, ARM, IBM, EDG) and GCC is easily the worst of these with respect to warnings (EDG-based compilers are the best). GCC doesn’t even have the concept of warning numbers nor the ability to control warnings within files. Awful.

By: Rusky

Rusky — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:47:03 +0000

Clang remembers typedefs and templates so its template error messages end up the same size as all the other ones, not kilobytes long.

You can also enable and disable each part of the error messages, so they can be just as compact as GCC while not being completely off the mark.

Error messages are not the only reason to switch, but they’re a big one if you’re dealing with templates, someone else’s code or you’re learning.

By: MrG

MrG — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:29:45 +0000

Brian King, have you tried STLFit: http://www.bdsoft.com/tools/stlfilt.html
It does a wonderful job of clearing up those template error messages.

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By: Steve Webb

Steve Webb — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:24:25 +0000

I’m a C programmer and that article didn’t really convince me to use clang. I hear that LLVM is more heavily-optimized than normal gcc-compiled C, but just based on error message coloring and a different error syntax, since I’m pretty used to the gcc error syntax, I don’t really see anything ground-breaking that would make me want to switch.

Isn’t there a color-coded ‘make’ or ‘gcc’ that does the color-coding of the error messages similar to this out there somewhere already?

By: Neural.Disruption

Neural.Disruption — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:03:02 +0000

Well GCC error messages are compact and concrete enough if you know what you’re doing, I like to read an error or warning without having to scroll up and down.

By: John Baptist

John Baptist — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:20:30 +0000

I don’t understand why all the comments are poo-pooing the obviously superior output from clang. This is the future, guys. gcc is stagant and the codebaes is a mess. In a few years, clang will be the standard FOSS compiler. It’s just a question of when you’re going to get on board.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:14:08 +0000

@Steve – so does that mean that there’s no such thing as a “novice C developer”?

By: Brian King

Brian King — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:06:34 +0000

I’d love to see how they do with templates. Nothing like copying a stack trace and spending 3 minutes formatting it to figure out what the hell it’s trying to say.

While not a reason to switch on it’s own, what is exciting as a C developer is the amount of work going into these tools. Maybe it’s just my news sources, but LLVM has brought a lot of energy to the less-sexy toolsets.