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Win32 Native Compilers

August 22nd, 2006

It is remarkable to me that so few Win32 native compilers are still available on the market today. I am well aware of the benefits of .Net and Java bytecode compilers. However, there are a number of products that are better suited to native code. Â Regardless of the reasons, it is troubling to note how few commercial/high quality competitors are left.

Worse yet, many of these compilers are basically out to pasture, obsolete, no longer maintained, old, crusty, and ultimately a bad idea to base any professional work on. But they might still be a ton of fun to explore.
Here are a few products that still generate native code. I do not include compilers that run byte codes or tokenized source.Â I include compilers that generate assembly or “C” source that can then be assembled/compiled to binaries.

BIG NEWS

http://www.turboexplorer.com/

This website has four compilers, two of which are compilers that are available in “express” editions and generate native code (Turbo Delphi and Turbo C++).

This is really great.

Ada Compilers

GNU Ada Compiler / GNAT Pro
Irvine Ada Compiler http://www.irvine.com/
RRSoftware’s Janus/Ada-95 http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/janus95/j-ada95.htm

BASIC Compilers

FreeBASIC Compiler
HotBasic compiler
Kbasic compiler (VB6 compliant)
PowerBasic http://powerbasic.com/
RealBasic
TrueBASIC Compiler http://www.truebasic.com/
XBLite (XBasic derivative)
XBasic Compiler

C++ Compilers

Digital Mars C++ compiler
Gnu C++ Compiler (MinGW)
Intel C++ Compiler
Microsoft Visual Studio C++
OpenWatcom C++ compiler
Borland C++
LCC-Win32 (free)

NOTE: if you are doing Windows development using free tools, you probably need to get the Windows-specific headers and libraries. You can get these at:

http://www.mingw.org/

COBOL Compilers

DIBOL