sounds right - tcc is a fast compiler, not an optimizing one. clang is faster than many, but optimizations take time to run.

Yes, absolutely, this is a tradeoff.

Running C code at 50% max speed is OK for me when running debug builds.

Clang being slower to compile is not an issue because I can use tcc. Unfortunately I can't use all those nice C++ features with tcc.

Also, it depends on the type of code.

I tried to replace the quicksort with a radix sort, and the difference is much closer on this better optimized code (15ms vs 17ms).