Clang'ed FreeBSD: Builds Quicker, Uses Way Less RAM

Phoronix: Clang'ed FreeBSD: Builds Quicker, Uses Way Less RAM

A FreeBSD developer has carried out a series of performance tests to explore the impact that LLVM/Clang as the default FreeBSD compiler has on FreeBSD 10 in its current form. The Clang compiler performance was compared to GCC 4.2.1 and GCC 4.7.1. Clang mostly comes out ahead of GCC on FreeBSD...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE3NjI

What a surprise :rolleyes:

"Clang'ed FreeBSD: Builds Quicker, Uses Way Less RAM": So FreeBSD uses less RAM, when compiled with Clang. :rolleyes:

Ok it builds faster and uses less RAM, what about the compiled binary?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemonzest

Ok it builds faster and uses less RAM, what about the compiled binary?

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Why should that matter at all? (/sarcasm)

this article is pure troll candy :o [from the gcc vs clang POV the article is fine]

Another article mentioning GCC, Clang and FreeBSD?

http://i.imgur.com/q061t.jpg

Well leaving aside the question of whether compilation speed is really a more important goal than the quality of the produced executable (size, performance, correctness), not knowing the optimisation switches used makes the data less useful. Perhaps I missed it in the mailing list post?

do you get money every time you say in a clang related article that it is Apple sponsored? :p

I appreciate that clang may be more CPU and memory efficient than gcc when compiling some C++ programs. That's great.

But, for a distro, the issue of the speed of the resultant binaries as well as well (in some part) the size of those binaries.

This is similar to the arguements over which compression program to use on distrubtions package files. If 10x more CPU in compression or 10x (or even in combination with) more memory usage during the compression stage is worth it if it produces a slightly smaller package as long as there are no large negatives in the decompression stage.

Compile/compress once run/decompress *many times*. It's pretty clear which side deserves more effort.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mark_

do you get money every time you say in a clang related article that it is Apple sponsored? :p

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I guess he gets as much money from Apple as he gets from Canonical when he writes that Unity is by them and from Red Hat when he mentions that GNOME Shell is mostly by them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by willmore

I appreciate that clang may be more CPU and memory efficient than gcc when compiling some C++ programs. That's great.

But, for a distro, the issue of the speed of the resultant binaries as well as well (in some part) the size of those binaries.

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Under FreeBSD installing software from the ports tree means compiling it (guess where Gentoo got the portage idea from). Compiler performance is more important there. Binary performance seldom makes a real life difference.