I thought the same thing. There wouldn't be a huge advantage to cross-compiling in this instance since the target platform can happily run the compiler?

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frumplestlatz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Running your builds on a much larger, higher performance server — using a real, decent, stable multi-user OS with proper networking — is a huge advantage.

	▲	knorker 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, but the gains may be lost in the logistics of shipping the build binary back to the PC for actual execution. An incremental build of C (not C++) code is pretty fast, and was pretty fast back then too. In q1source.zip this article links to is only 198k lines spread across 384 files. The largest file is 3391 lines. Though the linked q1source.zip is QW and WinQuake, so not exactly the DJGPP build. (quote the README: "The original dos version of Quake should also be buildable from these sources, but we didn't bother trying"). It's just not that big a codebase, even by 1990s standards. It was written by just a small team of amazing coders. I mean correct me if you have actual data to prove me wrong, but my memory at the time is that build times were really not a problem. C is just really fast to build. Even back in, was it 1997, when the source code was found laying around on an ftp server or something: https://www.wired.com/1997/01/hackers-hack-crack-steal-quake...