programming-for-dummies

Choosing a Compiler 85
3. Choose a compiler that has the best chance of being around years
from now.
• Most companies prefer using compilers from brand-name companies,
like Intel or Microsoft.
Even compilers from big-name companies are no guarantee against
obsolescence. Microsoft has stopped supporting their compilers over
the years, such as Microsoft Pascal and Visual Basic 6. So if you used
either of these compilers to write a program, you had to change compilers
when Microsoft stopped developing them.
• Many people are choosing “open source” compilers.
Open source simply means that the source code to the compiler is
available freely to anyone. Not only does this mean that open source
compilers are free (compared to the hundreds of dollars you can pay
for a brand-name compiler from Intel or Microsoft), but open source
also guarantees that the compiler can’t become obsolete due to lack
of support.
Book I
Chapter 4
Programming Tools
If you use a compiler from a company that goes out of business, you’re
forced to transfer (or port) your program to another compiler, which means
having to rewrite the program to run under a different compiler.
Because anyone can examine and modify the source code to an open source
compiler, anyone can make changes to the compiler to improve it. One of the
most popular open source compilers is GCC (http://gcc.gnu.org),
which stands for GNU Compiler Collection.
Xcode, the free compiler that Apple distributes with every Macintosh computer,
is actually the GCC compiler.
Originally, GCC only compiled C source code, but later versions of GCC now
compile several different languages, including C, C++, Java, Ada, and Objective-C,
with more programming languages being supported every day. Even better, the
GCC compiler also runs on a variety of operating systems, such as Windows
and Linux, so if you write a program using the GCC compiler, you can recompile
your program to run under another operating system with minimal
(hopefully) changes.
The GCC compiler actually consists of two parts:
✦ The front-end of the compiler translates source code into an intermediate
format.
• To write C++ programs, you must use the C++ front-end of the GCC
compiler.
• To write Ada programs, use the Ada front-end of the GCC compiler.