Author: Dan Homan
Date: 02:12:00 08/03/98
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On August 02, 1998 at 09:46:14, Christophe Theron wrote: >On August 01, 1998 at 18:32:18, Dan Homan wrote: > >>On August 01, 1998 at 10:34:52, Christophe Theron wrote: >>>On July 31, 1998 at 19:08:10, g.müller wrote: >>> >>>>Who works under Borland c++ 5.02 with Chess Programming please contact me. >>>>I work with V 3.1 and now I have big problems to transport source to V 5.02!! >>>>My platform is win 98 with PII 400 and 128 MB. >>> >>>I have NEVER been able to port Chess Tiger under Borland C++ 5.02 because of >>>horrible compiler and runtime library bugs. >>> >>I use Borland C++ 5.02 to make my Win32 executable and have had no >>trouble with it. My program compiled straight away with no trouble. >>I also compile my program under DJGPP and Digital C++. I have not >>tried compiling 16 bit DOS code in Borland 5.02, but 32 bit code >>(at least mine) seems to give no trouble as a Win32 console app. >>Borland c++ 5.02 seems to build a faster executable than DJGPP but >>I can't compare to Digital C++ as that is on an Alpha. >> >> - Dan >> >>P.S. I agree that there are better choices than Borland 5.02, but it >>is all I have for making Win32 apps. > > >I really hate to say it, because I have been a long time user of Borland >products, but I was *very* disappointed by BC5.02. > >I am wondering how you can work with this compiler. > >BC5.02 includes 2 compilers. The first one is the fast usual Borland compiler, >and the second is an optimizing compiler provided by Intel. > >I tried to compile Chess Tiger with both. Here is what happened: > >* The usual fast Borland compiler crashed when compiling a very long function >in Chess Tiger's positional evaluator. Something like a stack overflow I think. >It is true that I could have broken this function into smaller parts, but I had >previoulsy compiled this without any problem with 5 other compilers, including >Borland 4.0 and 4.5! And the long function is not a complex one. It is just >long, but not tricky. > >* The Intel optimizing compiler produced wrong assembly code in the isdigit() >function! isdigit is expanded inline (this is not a call to a run time library), >and the assembly code was doing one indirection in excess, thus causing a page >fault! > >After having these problems, I was seriously wondering if any of the Borland >testers had ever really compiled anything with their new stuff. > >I didn't give up at that stage in fact. I downloaded 2 patches from Borland's >internet site. It took me at least 2 hours. I applied the patches, but the >problems were still there. > >Then I tried to completely uninstall the compiler, clean my disk, and install >again. It didn't change anything. > >After 2 or 3 lost days, I decided to throw out the compiler. I had already lost >too much time with it. You can say I could have simplified my long function. The >problem is that my trust in Borland is completely gone now. I already had >problems with BC3.1 (the compiler crashes very often), more problems with BC4 >and Windows 95, and then too much trouble with BC5.02. It looks like every new >version is worse than the previous one. Borland is not going to have me as a >customer again. > > > Christophe Wow, I knew there were serious problems with 5.00, but I didn't realize that 5.02 also had such problems. My experience with 5.02 has been different from yours but that may be due to the lack of serious complexity in my program. You are right to be frusterated with the experience you have had. I do occasionally get compile errors of varying description and usually need to restart my computer to get a clean compile. This is rare (1 in 20 or so), and I always have assumed it was not related to Borland but had to do with bad RAM access or something, perhaps I was wrong. - Dan
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