gcc compiler advantage

Question

can anyone tell me what gcc is?? and wts are its advantage over other compiler like turbo c and visual c

Answer 1

The GNU Compiler Collection are the compilers used in GNU/Linux systems. I don't know that they compete with Turbo C or Visual C, which I think only run on DOS/Windows systems.

The main advantage to a user is that GCC can be installed on (and is sometimes distributed with) nearly every GNU/Linux system and can be used to build packages that are distributed as source.

I'm sure there are advantages that programmers would recognize, but maybe that's a topic for stackoverflow.com.

[Edit] Now that this question has been migrated, see Michael Kohne's answer for some advantages to programmers.

Answer 2

Big advantage of gcc over Turbo C and Visual C: it's free!*

And it's ubiquitous, especially on the various *nix environments. You can use it on Windows via either cygwin or MinGW. It compiles a truly staggering number of languages (C, C++, Ada, Java, Fortran, Objective-C), and supplies an intermediate language for Haskell.

It has been used for industrial-strength projects for decades now, so you're pretty safe with it.

*(Though, in all fairness, Microsoft does offer Visual C++ Express for free, though it is not open source.)

Answer 3

The GNU Compiler Collection is an open source (GPL) compiler. It's found on a wide variety of systems, ranging from GNU/Linux to every flavor of Unix, to Windows.

GCC contains support for many languages (C, C++, Fortran, to name bug a few). It's highly portable, and widely used, and tends to produce good code. It can also be used as a cross-compiler (compiling for a system other than the one running GCC).

It's the default compiler choice for most Unix-type systems because most vendors don't bother to write their own compilers anymore - GCC is just too good for general use.

Under Windows, Microsoft's own dev tools are often preferred because they get support for new technologies quicker.

In high-performance programming environments (and some embedded environments) you may want a compiler that's more highly tuned to the chip/system in question.

Answer 4

The GCC collection is open source. This allows it to be ported to MANY different platforms rather quickly because so many people work on it and have seen how it works. Commercial compilers usually are closed-source, and such only one company or consorsium can do the porting, which can be time-consuming.

Answer 5

The real true advantage of gcc over turbo C and visual C is it's availability on platforms other than Windows, and it's ability of building cross-platform binaries, meaning you can set up a build tool chain to build windows binaries on a linux box with gcc, or you can set up a similar tool chain to build some arm binaries on an intel box, which is definitely nice since you might not have as much power in your arm device as you might have in you development rig. With visual c compiler and turbo c compiler that's close to impossible.
A nice bonus to all that - gcc is open source and free.

Answer 6

Whereas GCC started as GNU C Compiler, it is now GNU Compiler Collection, as it has compilers for C, C++, Java, Fortran among others. Why would you want to use it? Because its better. Better, because:

1. Once you have written your code using the GCC compilers, you are assured that your code will work on a lot of other OSs/platforms/architectures. You will be able to do a lot more in and with your programs than you would do in Turbo C, which is pretty much tied to Windows.
2. GCC is used by all of those projects out there in the wild. Having some experience with GCC is definitely a great plus when you are moving to some serious programming.
3. and its just good karma :)