Re: [Tinycc-devel] TCC could reach the same level of GCC and Clang (LLVM) when you write good code?

[Antonio Prates]

Hello Rempas,

You raise some noteworthy points about TCC's utility in the modern
programming environment, and I agree with the spirit of your argument -
that quality code and community sharing are powerful factors for success.

I've had my fair share of experiences with TCC, and though it does have
many merits, it has its limitations too. For instance, I have a
moderately-sized project that won't compile with TCC, which underscores
the challenges use of modern C.

Also, the gains from optimization provided by other compilers can be
substantially more than the 30% you noted. I've seen optimizations
result in more like a 2~3x runtime performance improvement, which in a
production environment can be quite significant.

That said, I am a firm believer in the importance of code clarity over
squeezing out every last drop of efficiency. After all, maintainability
and understandability are pivotal for long-term project success. Let the
compiler handle the heavy lifting of optimization, freeing us to focus
on crafting understandable code.

That's not to say TCC doesn't have its place. It can be a quite useful
tool for running quick tests or prototyping, given its fast compilation
times. My suggestion would be to use TCC for these instances and then
switch to an optimizing compiler for final production builds. Unit tests
can help ensure that functionality remains consistent across different 
compilers.

I hope this provides a somewhat balanced perspective to the conversation.

Best,
Antonio Prates
aprates.dev