> From what you say, it looks as though one isn't forced using
> GCC, then one
> should be able to compare speed against code produced by
> other compilers.
Unfortunately not; we need gcc. Well, strictly speaking the requirement is
a compiler that supports ISO99 C (or whatever it's called) since we use some
of the features which until recently were "gcc-specific extensions" but are
now ISO C: zero-length arrays, labelled structure initializers, etc.
Removing the uses of these features would be something of a pain.
Cheers,
Simon
