Question

Besides gcc, what are some other good C or C++ compilers?

Answer 1

To the best of my knowledge, gcc is pretty much it on GNU/Linux. Windows Visual Studio has its own compiler, of course, because that's how Microsoft is. Even Mac OS X runs a version of gcc, slightly modified I think, but it's gcc nonetheless.

Answer 2

I've heard of some Intel C compiler, some ancient Borland ones (Turbo C etc.), and something called Watcom.... are they really worse than gcc?

Answer 3

There's a pretty good open-source alternative to GCC these days, based on the LLVM (low level virtual machine) technology. It's been ported to a number of chips/OSs. The actual compiler is called 'clang' and that one compiler understands C, C++ and Objective C. See http://llvm.org/releases/.