For the error tests, both the GNU and Portland compilers beat out the IBM compiler handily. For the functional tests, the GNU compiler is quite a bit better than the IBM compiler which is quite a bit better than the Portland compiler. Overall, the GNU gcc compiler is significantly better than the IBM xlc compiler. For the error tests, the Portland compiler is significantly better that the IBM compiler. For the functional tests, the IBM compiler is better than any of Linux compilers, but not by a large margin.
Further investigation is warranted.
The following comments reflect the interpretations and opinions of the author only. They do not represent a position of either UCLA or Academic Technology Services. Mismatched data types. Additional type information might be added to messages in order to allow the system to detect mismatches between datatype at sender and receiver. This might be particularly useful in a slower but safer debug mode.