The compiler suite coming for all SGI MIPS-based machines is one of the best optimized development tools for any platform. SGI has put many years of experience on the newest version of the series, MIPSpro 7.4, which we recently gave it a spin.The tools support C/C++ and Fortran 77/90. For legacy and other reasons, the tools support no less than 3 ABIs for both 32bit and 64bit development and execution (the 32bit part supports 32bit data addressing and pointers while the 64bit part supports 64bit data addresses and pointers). Supported platforms are the MIPS R4000 up to R14000 and the suite can be installed on any IRIX 6.5.x platform but full C99 support can only be provided on 6.5.18 because the new C99-compliant C library is provided with the operating system.
Some of the great features found on the MIPSpro compilers is the ability for Automatic Parallelization Option which allows the applications to automatically take advantage of an SMP environment and multi threading. Additionally, there is a good integration between the supported programming languages. For example, libraries written in Fortran 77 or 90, can be reused/linked against C/C++ apps with no code changes.
Among the major new features you will find in the brand new version of the compiler suite is OpenMP 2.0 support on Fortran, C99 support, full Fortran 90 support and several back-end enhancements.
For C code, you can either use the “cc -c99” flag to access the new features, or you will need to use the new command “c99” on the command line. Among the new features in C you will find support for __Bool, __Complex and Imaginary keywords and data types. Also, you will find support for designated initializers for arrays, structures and unions, variable length arrays and variable number of macros.
One great feature found on MIPSpro is the ability to load “modules” that will let you compile your application with the same libraries and compiler found on older version with two simple command like this:
module load modules
module load MIPSpro.7313
and if you want to go back to the latest version, you do again
module load MIPSpro.74
To debug, you can do it via the command line, like this: cc -g myprog.c
or by loading cvd, which is the GUI front end to the debugger. With CVD you can expect to find all what a developer would expect to find on a modern debugger (you can debug memory, arrays…) SGI also includes support for the great “fix and continue” feature, which lets you modify the program at the source level while under the debugger and automagically continues running from the new source transparently!
The profiler can be used with any language, while it may be used often for Fortran programs, it is not a limitation. The profiler has 4 settings of optimizations. For example you can do something like ff77 -00 myprog.f which is the default optimization level. Changing the -00 setting to -01 up to -03 would give you higher level of optimizations. We should not forget that SGI has got into great lengths to create tools that generate extremely optimized code. The ssrun command, used to find bottlenecks in code, executes performance analysis experiments with users program and the results can either be displayed with a GUI tool (cvperf) or as text using the prof command.
Documentation is very good. There are 13 books about the MIPSpro compiler which are get installed along with the dev tools and you can find some of them online too.
Prices start from $700 USD for a single user and it goes up depending on the machine that the compiler will run, on contracts, number of CPUs or number of users.
For the Itanium machines, SGI will stick to the Intel C and Fortran compilers.
We did not experience problems with the MIPSpro compiler suite, but what is really missing from the solution is a GUI IDE.
So, how can this work
“which lets you modify the program at the source level while under the debugger and automagically continues running from the new source transparently”
If you compile your program at +O2, how can the debugger change that code without recompiling the whole thing?
But Solaris is still a lot better.
> If you compile your program at +O2, how can the debugger change that code without recompiling the whole thing?
If you compile at +O2 you don’t debug. You release pretty much. In any way, I don’t have the SGI machine anymore (SGI got it back last Thursday) so I can’t test it for you.
> But Solaris is still a lot better.
Why?
I thought your last day was Dec. 12th. I am already noticing a slowdown in news and you haven’t quite left yet!
People, P L E A S E dont turn this site turn into something like macslash.org that just rehashes apple.slashdot.org news !!!
Regards,
An avid reader
We did not experience problems with the MIPSpro compiler suite, but what is really missing from the solution is a GUI IDE.
but IRIX ships with emacs, doesnt it?
and a longer shot: i’m pretty sure Kdevelop works in IRIX too.
> So, how can this work
>
> “which lets you modify the program at the source level while under the debugger
> and automagically continues running from the new source transparently”
>
> If you compile your program at +O2, how can the debugger change that code without
> recompiling the whole thing?
Visual C++ has been doing this for a while with a feature called “edit and continue.” And building on what Eugenia said, there are very few times when you have to track a bug down in release mode, but when that happens you can direct the compiler to add the debugging information to the release build until you have resolved the problem.
> We did not experience problems with the MIPSpro compiler suite, but what is really
> missing from the solution is a GUI IDE.
Judging from the ugliness of the screenshot, maybe it is better that they do not have an IDE… 😉
i agree – for a platform aimed at the graphics market their UI is bad!
and, yes, it does matter – i don’t want to develop on an ugly platform! like i don’t want to read badly printed books.
the main reason i chose emacs over gedit was the fonts were easy to look at. its not silly – visual impressions and ease of use are easy.
i’m new to developping and i looked at the screenshot and thought: yeurgh! even if it is the most flexibale powerful set of dev tools around.
netbeans – slow though it is – doesn’t give me a swirling headache after prolonged use…
my 2p
SGI is for people who work and make things happen, and not for GUI addicts who need 500M RAD/IDE suit to compile simple programs. For 80% of development vi+xterm is more than enough. debuggers are for the rest 20%
SGI windows manager is self-sufficient, fast and decent. I preferred and still prefer it to kde/window$/osx like monsters.
aka: A typical Unix hacker response. Stop living in the past, today there are much more advanced tools than the command line and vi/Emacs. Please try something like IntelliJ IDEA for Java and you will never look back again.
For 80% of development vi+xterm is more than enough. debuggers are for the rest 20%
Amen brother,
It is not living in the past to use vim(vi)/emacs. RADs just give the impression of speed, sooner or later you are going to have to write code. I speak from experience, there has been more then once when I have spent to much time debugging third party components. It is not wise to turn up your nose at development tools that have been tried and tested.
I think the point people are trying to make, or atleast what I believe is, is that if you are going to give up screen space with a graphical editor – it better be worth the space.
In my opinion, this editor is NOT worth the given up space for the crappy looking gui. How does editor compared to the most basic vi/emacs benefit you?
I forgot to say in the previous post. The ONLY, and I mean ONLY feature of graphical editors that I like is the autocomplete function methods.
This helps for many reasons:
(1) It quickly gives you a list of all available methods
(2) If you are calling an inherited class, it is nice to be able to see the inherited methods
(3) You are more prone to find logical error when coding with it
and that is just my 2¢
“Ugliness” is a very superficial comment about a GUI, especially one that isn’t marketed to the general public. SGI’s GUI is rather known for being a good UNIX GUI (widget-looks aside) that is highly usable. Isn’t there a *real* complain you can levy?
As for Vi/Emacs, I understand where both sides are coming from. The main issue is that Vi/Emacs are proven tools, while RAD tools have a history of being crappy. This might have changed by now, but the burden of proof is on them. Of course, I use Mosfet Liquid, so I guess that limits my ability to be all UNIX-grognardy about this…
Hey look, I’m all for the lean vi/emacs/command line dev environment (i use vim most of the time) but the various shades of purple combined with italic fonts everywhere is heinous… And the font rendering doesn’t look too hot either.
The tools _sound_ pretty sweet though
> “Ugliness” is a very superficial comment about a GUI, especially one that isn’t
> marketed to the general public. SGI’s GUI is rather known for being a good UNIX GUI
> (widget-looks aside) that is highly usable. Isn’t there a *real* complain you can levy?
If the ugliness of the graphical environment is so superficial, it ought to be easy to fix. Seeing as how the review was very light (no performance numbers, no comparison, very little licensing information, no discussion of SGI support, etc.), the only thing that I can comment on is the graphical environment.
It looks about 10x uglier than VC++.NET, and almost as ugly as VC++ 1.0 running under Windows 3.1. The only other development environment approaching that level of ugliness is Sun’s Java development enrivonment, whose fonts resembled BeagleWrite on an Apple IIGS. Pink edit boxes, a yellow background, blue buttons, and liberal use of non-smoothed italic fonts…B-L-E-C-H. =P
And besides, how would you feel if Caterpillar started selling heavy equipment covered with green and yellow polka dots?
Congress should pass a law requiring SGI development boxes to come with a giant warning label which says, “WARNING! This computer’s GUI was designed by engineers. Possible side affects may include, but are not limited to, occasional dizziness, lightheadedness, eye strain, gas, and/or lung cancer. Use at your own risk.”
the person below has it right…
i consider myself a person that makes things happen (as someone said above) ,… thats why i said i preferred emacs initially just for the clear fonts – clear fonts means no headache … noheadache means getting things done.
i’ll also add that i prefer the linux non-X console because i can actually read the screen without problem! emacs-nox all the way!
but the point subverted was that people who don’t mind bad UI are more hardcore than you or I and get more done.
the person below put it well…
————
I think the point people are trying to make, or atleast what I believe is, is that if you are going to give up screen space with a graphical editor – it better be worth the space.
In my opinion, this editor is NOT worth the given up space for the crappy looking gui. How does editor compared to the most basic vi/emacs benefit you?
The GUI is quite nice if you actually use it. It has clear text and controls and it is easy on the eye. Also, if you don’t like the default colors you can change them. There are color schemes to change all the colors in one go, or you can change parts.
Try it before you diss it.
> The GUI is quite nice if you actually use it.
So the SGI monitors makes it look nicer than the screenshot does on my Windows XP PC? Must be some monitors…
> It has clear text and controls and it is easy on the eye.
Yeah, if you are legally blind.
> Also, if you don’t like the default colors you can change them. There are color schemes
> to change all the colors in one go, or you can change parts.
Why the ridiculous defaults then?
> Try it before you diss it.
I can send you my address via email if you would like to ship a SGI MIPS computer with the compiler suite here for me to test. Otherwise, no, I am not going to shell out a few grand just so that I can find out the same things I already saw when I looked at the screenshot.
>> The GUI is quite nice if you actually use it.
>So the SGI monitors makes it look nicer than the screenshot does on >my Windows XP PC? Must be some monitors…
All I’m saying is that the GUI works quite well in practice with the colors it has. Windows XP looks like a candy store to me. Way too distracting. The GUI should not hamper you in your work.
>> It has clear text and controls and it is easy on the eye.
>Yeah, if you are legally blind.
Oh, go ahead and insult people. If you’re talking about the yellow background, that’s not the default. The default is a nice green color. Otherwise I don’t see the big fuss about the GUI.
>> Also, if you don’t like the default colors you can change them. There
>>are color schemes
>> to change all the colors in one go, or you can change parts.
>Why the ridiculous defaults then?
They may be ridiculous to you, but to me they seem to be reasonable defaults. I’ll try and adres the points you made in another post.
The pink in some of the text boxes is actually quite nice and not nearly as intrusive as you might think, the yellow background is not default and is easily changed, the blue buttons are only for a few buttons in this application and they don’t look bad on the grey background and the non-smoothed italic fonts look way better than the fonts in many of the window managers that are available on unix.
I’m not saying that the GUI is the best there is. I’m just saying you’re way overreacting on this whole thing.
>> Try it before you diss it.
>I can send you my address via email if you would like to ship a SGI
>MIPS computer with the compiler suite here for me to test. Otherwise,
> no, I am not going to shell out a few grand just so that I can find out
> the same things I already saw when I looked at the screenshot.
Yeah, dissing the whole GUI based on one screenshot is so much more fun.
> All I’m saying is that the GUI works quite well in practice with the colors it has.
> Windows XP looks like a candy store to me. Way too distracting. The GUI
> should not hamper you in your work.
The text is readable, the buttons are very easy to see, and the windows/widgets overall have high contrast without making my eyes hurt. If you think that it looks like a candy store, you are welcome to your opinion, but you have not given any reason why it would hamper your work.
> Oh, go ahead and insult people.
You would have to be legally blind to think that the text in that screenshot is good compared to other graphical environments. My dad is legally blind, although that is mostly due to his refusal to wear his glasses while computing, and he cannot tell the difference between smoothed and non-smoothed fonts. And where did you get the idea that being legally blind is an insult?
> If you’re talking about the yellow background, that’s not the default. The default
> is a nice green color. Otherwise I don’t see the big fuss about the GUI.
(The only thing more irritating than a review showing screenshots of non-default themes is being told later that they do not reflect the company’s UI design decisions.)
It is ugly. Italic fonts without some kind of smoothing are hard on the eyes, and the hinting on the normal fonts does not look good at all. I want to be able to read the text without having to sit there and study it. Granted, it is not nearly as bad as poor font smoothing, but it is still nowhere close to RedHat 8.0 or Windows XP with ClearType enabled.
> The pink in some of the text boxes is actually quite nice and not nearly as intrusive
> as you might think
But…pink? o_0
> the yellow background is not default
Okay, I will give you that one.
> and is easily changed
I have not seen the default, and it is important.
> the blue buttons are only for a few buttons in this application
Then they are inconsistent with the rest of the system?
> and they don’t look bad on the grey background
No, but they do not look particularly good either. They look like something I drew in VC++ 1.0’s icon editor so many years ago. No gradients, no 3D look, jagged lines, etc. Compare the look of the SGI debugger shown in the screen shot to the Netscape 7.0 “Modern” theme.
> and the non-smoothed italic fonts look way better than the fonts in many of the window
> managers that are available on unix
Perhaps, but that is not saying much. 😉
> Yeah, dissing the whole GUI based on one screenshot is so much more fun.
I was “dissing” one aspect of the GUI – its appearance – and for that only one screenshot was needed. My criticisms were, to the best of my knowledge, fair and accurate. Had I said that the UI was unresponsive, or illogically laid out, or some other such thing that cannot be easily determined from a screenshot, I might have agreed with you.
Anyway, my take on the matter is that SGI could care less about having an aesthetically appealing development environment because the customers are buying the machine for its hardware.
> Pink edit boxes, a yellow background, blue buttons, and
> liberal use of non-smoothed italic fonts…B-L-E-C-H.
> =P
…
> with italic fonts everywhere is heinous
Oh, come on people, default widgets properties are all configurable
Besides, .xdefaults and .xresources are still working…
It’s quite clear that the majority of the anti-SGI, anti-SUN and anti-Tru64 posts come from linux zealots, who think xterm window should highlight directories and recognized file types.
I don’t live in the past and I don’t mind nice IDE, using myself the one on Win32, but now imagine, you’re sitting at the customer site testing your beloved piece of code and it cores. Modem 33600 is your only entrance to cvs in your company. In this case Exceed or other Xserver is out of question, pure terminal only…
I agree that the article lacks some tests figures.
P.S. I personally also dislike the palette of the screenshot, especially background
I guess we both have completely different views on what makes a nice GUI.
Windows XP has nicer fonts, though. I wish they’d implement better fonts in Irix as well.
One day you may be able to have that beautiful SGI gui on Linux…
http://www.5dwm.org/