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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computer architects leaving Intel...
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2024 21:09:47 +0200
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On 14/09/2024 04:39, BGB wrote:
> On 9/13/2024 10:55 AM, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> schrieb:
>>>
>>> Most of the commonly used parts of C99 have been "safe" to use for 20
>>> years.  There were a few bits that MSVC did not implement until
>>> relatively recently, but I think even have caught up now.
>>
>> What about VLAs?
>>
> 
> IIRC, VLAs and _Complex and similar still don't work in MSVC.
> Most of the rest does now at least.
> 

Thanks - you know it far better than I do.

>>> There are only two serious, general purpose C compilers in mainstream
>>> use - gcc and clang, and both support almost all of C23 now.  But it
>>> will take a while for the more niche tools, such as some embedded
>>> compilers, to catch up.
>>
>> It is almost impossible to gather statistics on compiler use,
>> especially with free compilers, but what about MSVC and icc?
> 
>  From what I gather:
>    GCC and Clang are popular for most mainline targets;
>      GCC is the dominant C compiler on Linux.

It is also far and away the dominant compiler for embedded systems - 
both embedded Linux and small embedded systems.

>    MSVC is popular on Windows
>      Has been essentially freeware/fremium for over a decade;
>      Visual Studio has a fairly good debugger;
>      Targets limited to things you can run Windows on (x86, X64, ARM)

MSVC is mainly used for C++ - or for a C-like subset of C++.

..
>    TinyCC, popular for niche use, but limited range of targets;
>      x86, ARM, experimental RISC-V.
>    SDCC, popular for 8/16 bit targets;

SDCC has never been very popular.  For the targets SDCC support, Keil 
(8051) and IAR (many small CISC targets) are far more common.  But for 
these kinds of devices, you are never working in anything close to 
standard C anyway.

>    CC65, popular for 6502 and 65C816;

That's getting /really/ obscure now.  There are thousands of C compilers 
that are used, or have been used, for various microcontrollers.  But if 
you sum all their uses over the last decade, it will not be close to 1% 
of the total use of C compilers.