> On a mailing list concerned with another programming language (but not a
> very well-known one*), the following comment appeared today:
>
> > If you want to see a really slow compiler I suggest
> > you try using ADA (yuk!) if you haven't already.
>
> I suspect this may be based on not-very-current experience, and I would
> like to provide some solid evidence that Ada compilers need not be slow.

Starting with nothing compiled, on a project with over 17,000 source files
(million-plus SLOC) ....

On a Sun SPARCserver-1000, with one processor, and source files NFS
mounted, and a fairly heavy load from other users (it's one of our main
fileservers) .....

I ran a script that does gnatmake with optimization for 98 executables.

Took about ten hours.  Takes _MUCH_ less (but I don't have exact numbers) on
a four-processor Ultra-2 with source on local disks.

Apex speed on the same source is slower but comparable.