[squid-users] GCC optimizer is provably junk. Here is the evidence.

[Dave Blanchard]

To whom it may concern--e.g. users of GCC who naively assume GCC is maintained by professionals who care about correct code generation:

Stefan Kanthak has collected a body of evidence showing that the GCC optimizer is essentially garbage on both x86-32 and -64 targets. This ongoing regression apparently started in GCC 6.x and continues to get worse with every version of GCC. Here is the proof:

https://skanthak.hier-im-netz.de/gcc.html

I invite users of GCC and others concerned about this situation to review Mr. Kanthak's numerous posts to the GCC mailing list, along with the indifferent/hostile responses by GCC mailing list members. They attacked him, ridiculed him, called him a stupid noob, tried to shuffle him off to the dusty and dark corner of a bug tracker so he could be conveniently ignored and forgotten, and in every way refused to acknowledge or accept his findings.

I found this situatio disturbing, and have been rather unimpressed with the generally nasty and hateful attitude of GCC representatives to his postings plus my own supportive comments, in various responses such as the following:

>From Jonathan Wakely:

> Dave [...] contributes nothing here except bile.

>From Mark Wielaard: 

> You have been warned before. Please stop sending these negative
unproductive messages to this list attacking well respected productive
maintainers of the project. Your attitude is not welcome.

Here's a nice gem from Julian Waters, a thoroughly pleasant and amiable fellow:

> Hello again, Dave. Have you managed to learn how a basic language
> Interpreter works before commenting on the significantly-more-complex
> gcc's efficiency? Or were you not able to because your IQ is below the
> freezing point of water and you can't even understand what a basic
> tree walker is?

> Then again, with an address like killthe.net, why should we even take
> you seriously? Hell, even though I miraculously agree that stuff like
> GNU and Linux is not beginner friendly, and gcc could do with some
> improvements in that department, no one wants to take any advice from
> a self righteous and idiotic piece of shit like yourself. At least
> Stefan was smart enough to bail when others pointed out the holes in
> his examples of gcc's instruction selection allegedly being poor. You,
> not so much. I doubt the clang people want you either, so do them a
> favour and stay the hell away from LLVM, and this is coming from
> someone who doesn't really like LLVM in the first place.

(In case is it of any interest to you, Julian, the domain 'killthe.net' is my own small way of protesting the absolute dumpster fire the internet has become in recent years, with your increasingly broken compiler being only one notable example of the continuous, ongoing degradation--"enshittification"--of everything in tech.)

Clearly, judging by the hostiliy of their responses, these GCC representatives find it irksome that anyone would dare criticize their project. Nevermind that this project has maneuvered itself into a position where thousands of software projects and operating systems depend on their increasingly junk code output. The ongoing degradation of their code generator and the resulting economic damages to their millions of users is apparently of little concern to them. The silence of GNU founder Richard Stallman on this topic is notable, and equally disturbing.

Given the increasing severity of this problem with every GCC version, and the toxic responses by GCC "maintainers" to this situation, there are only two conclusions one can logically reach:

a) sheer incompetence on the part of GCC "maintainers", combined with haughty arrogance

b) active malice on the part of GCC "maintainers", combined with haughty arrogance

I know enough about how the world actually works to know that the correct conclusion is 'B'. They are doing this purposefully, they know exactly what they are doing, and they really don't like their evil deeds being exposed to daylight.

In my view, the entire GNU organization is a toxic cancer on the UNIX world...and it was designed to be exactly that from the very beginning.

It appears the true purpose of GNU was to "embrace, extend, extinguish" the fledgling UNIX open source world; to capture and control it with sinister and selfish motives and intentions; exactly the same strategy as Microsoft has famously used elsewhere, and exactly the same as RedHat along with Linux Puttering and their ilk have continued today. When one understands this, and a lot of things that don't make any sense will suddenly become clear.

Let this email be a warning To Whom It May Concern that the GCC project is a flaming dumpster heap which should be abandoned by freedom-loving programmers and system maintainers ASAP.

Don't assume LLVM/clang is any better, either. They are controlled by the same sinister forces who control GCC (i.e. the people who own Apple, Microsoft, and every other major tech company) and are NOT to be trusted.

What freedom-loving people actually need is a new compiler that can actually be trusted. I leave that solution as an exercise to the reader.

Sincerely,

Dave Blanchard (aka "the idiotic and self-righteous piece of shit")