Phoronix picked up Linus Torvalds’ providing some not so gentle feedback on GCC 4.9. GCC 4.9 supports OpenMP 4.0. Apparently the latest GNU compiler is doing some silly spilling of CPU registers (including constants!) that caused a random panic in a load balance function with the in-development Linux 3.16 kernel. On a comparative note, GCC just received the ACM Programming Languages Software Award.
Specifically, Linus wrote:
Ok, so I’m looking at the code generation and your compiler is pure and utter *shit*.
Adding Jakub to the cc, because gcc-4.9.0 seems to be terminally broken.
Lookie here, your compiler does some absolutely insane things with the spilling, including spilling a *constant*. For chrissake, that compiler shouldn’t have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten. We’re talking “sloth that was dropped on the head as a baby” level retardation levels
Torvalds went on to say, “Note the contents of -136(%rbp). Seriously. That’s an _immediate_constant_ that the compiler is spilling. Somebody needs to raise that as a gcc bug. Because it damn well is some seriously crazy shit.”
As a recognized leader in computation with numerous accolades such as sharing a Millennium Technology Prize (often referred to as the “tech Nobel”) with pioneering stem cell scientist Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, Linus carries some heavy clout to get tech problems fixed.
TechEnablement founder, Rob Farber, uses Linus as an example of how a student working in a dorm room can “change the world”. Linus was able to leverage the capabilities of the first consumer virtual memory computers to create Linux, which means that students around the world have a similar opportunity to leverage teraflop per second consumer massively parallel supercomputers like GPUs. Massively parallel computing is no longer restricted to just the technology and scientific elite, just as the IBM PC made virtual memory technology available to the masses.
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