RFR: 8019470 "Changes needed to compile JDK8 on MacOS with clang compiler"

[David Chase]

On 2013-07-23, at 7:38 PM, Tim Bell <tim.bell at oracle.com> wrote:

> Hello Leonid:
> 
>> Just to satisfy my curiosity: what are advantages of using clang instead of gcc?
> 
> I am a mere messenger here, but I am told that clang/clang++:
> 
> - is command line compatible with gcc
> - is faster
> - produces better diagnostic messages
> - clang on MacOS is under active development while gcc is not [citation needed]
> 
> To others out there - feel free to correct these points, or add more of your own.

Clang is the default compiler for the next (Mavericks) MacOS release, or so I have heard.
Clang is already more up-to-date than (Apple-packaged) gcc on MacOS -- if you want to access some of the "new" (two years old) intrinsics from C or from the assembler, you need to use clang.
Compilation of hotspot itself is faster with clang; not sure about the performance of hotspot itself.

David