A question about compiling

Tortanick · 11-05-2007, 12:09 PM

Just a simple question, what would you say is the minimum hardware requirements for compiling programs?

And what is more important, RAM or Processor power?

orgcandman · 11-05-2007, 12:33 PM

that depends on the language, size of the project being built (in KLOCs), and size of the individual files.

Your question is simply phrased, but it's asking something non-trivial.

As far as building a home project (say helloworld or something) in C/C++, if it's a few dozen KLOCs (1 KLOC = thousands of lines of code), any new PC with 512+ MB RAM should build the whole thing in under a minute or two.

Tortanick · 11-05-2007, 02:29 PM

Right, to be more specific I'm a first year computer science student so I'm looking for that level of compiling, in several different languages as they come up on the course. I probably won't be doing frequent compiles of the entirety of KDE or anything, not for a while anyway.

By the sound of it any modern PC will do, (As a primarally Linux guy I really appreciate Windows for its effect on hardware specs and prices). So thanks for the answer.