[fpc-devel] Re: Comparison FPC 2.6.2 - Kylix 3

Marcos Douglas md at delfire.net
Mon Mar 4 02:16:01 CET 2013


On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Graeme Geldenhuys
<graeme at geldenhuys.co.uk> wrote:
> On 2013-03-03 23:21, Marcos Douglas wrote:
>>
>> Sad. Instead of "fight", why not walking together?
>
> I'm not joining any "fight", simply wanted to know what the 'm' stood for.

I know. I just used the last mail on this thread -- in that case, your
mail. Sorry.

>> I do not know nothing about compilers, but I know the Florian Klämpfl
>> will do nothing about you're saying because do you do not have
>> proposed improvements!
>
> You said it yourself... most of us know nothing about compiler coding.
> So how are we supposed to propose improvements! All we can do is file
> bug reports on things we can duplicate, or highlight issues. This is
> what Martin is doing here.

Yes, I agree... but I feel a "fight" between Martin and FPC Team,
don't you agree?

> 4.4 seconds (Kylix under Linux) vs 89 seconds (FPC under Linux)... That
> is just too a huge performance difference to justify. Yes, we all know
> the argument about more platforms, maintainable code etc, but that
> couldn't possible be the only reason for such a huge speed difference.
> Somewhere there is a serious bottleneck(s), or the FPC team simply
> disregard optimization completely. From why I have heard them say, the
> latter is more likely [unfortunately].
>
> But let me repeat what you said earlier. Some of use know nothing about
> compilers coding, so not much we can do about it. The task falls
> squarely on the select few, but they have no interest in that.
> Optimization is boring work, compared to implementing the latest CPU
> target or language feature. I understand that fully. A great pity.

I feel the same... but we can not force people who work for free to do
tasks that are not important to them.

>> You are only showing the Delphi/Kylix speed is
>> extremely superior
>
> And Martin is just showing half the problem. The Delphi & Kylix
> compilers also produce executables that run 10+ times faster than what
> FPC 2.6.0 can produce. Even on the more optimized 32-bit compiler. And
> don't even think of mentioning that faster hardware will mask the
> problem - it doesn't. I have a i7-2660K running at 3.6Ghz with high
> performance RAM and 450MB read speed SSD. I noticed a > 10+ times
> difference in running executables on my hardware.

Again I repeat: I agree with you.
The Pascal is known because it is simple, elegant,  [,,,] and FAST.

> And comments from Florian like "expect FPC to get even slower by the
> next release" doesn't help much.

Yeah... very sad.

> Nobody expects FPC to beat Delphi or Kylix performance, but FPC
> degrading its speed (compile time and executable run time) year-on-year
> is not a good sign for the long run.

Many many "improvements" trying to following Delphi, Java, whatever.

> Anyway, this is nothing new. I mentioned this long ago, and made my
> peace with it. I have to cherish the fact that FPC is luckily still
> faster that C/C++ compilers.

For the time being... :)

Marcos Douglas



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