[Zope-dev] RE: [Zope-Coders] Zope builds (new Intel C++ compiler)

[Tim Peters]

[Tim Peters]
> The Intel compiler tries to exploit special short-vector hardware
> that's of great use in number-crunching apps that spend most of their
> time in tight, regular, numeric inner loops, but sits idle otherwise.
> There's very little of that in Python or Zope.

[Morten W. Petersen]
> Would the difference be negligible?

It's impossible to say without trying it.  The referenced article was
specifically about number-crunching benchmarks.

> What compilers are currently used for Windows/Linux?

If you build Zope yourself, whichever compiler you used <wink>.  The C
library is also important, and so is the OS.  The PythonLabs Windows Python
is built with MSVC 6.

> Are 'better' compilers available?

I'm afraid there aren't easy answers here.  "Try it and time it."  Fiddling
compiler optimization switches to favor your specific hardware can also be a
big help.