Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cca.ucsf.edu!root From: root@cca.ucsf.edu (Systems Staff) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Dhrystone 2.1 sample run Summary: DON'T change it. Message-ID: <2482@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> Date: 9 Oct 89 20:23:44 GMT References: <24988@louie.udel.EDU> <2457@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> <3545@ast.cs.vu.nl> <3593@ast.cs.vu.nl> Organization: Computer Center, UCSF Lines: 43 In article <3593@ast.cs.vu.nl>, ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: > > However, I consider it extremely poor human engineering to print out > a ton of lines that are the same (pairwise), apparently with the > idea that the user is to compare them. Why can't the computer do that? > > I think the interface of the first dhrystone version that simply printed > the answer is much nicer. Any objections if I delete all the garbage in > the MINIX version? > Under no circumstances make such deletions! This code is needed to make sure that compilers don't perform sleight-of- hand and make a lot of the computation vanish. They consider anything that's computed but not used as irrelevant and subject to deletion. It was the spread of such compilers that made release 1 Dhrystone obsolete. Printing the results makes sure that everything is being left in the computation. If you don't want to see it all after the first run, you can pipe the output through "tail" and just get the part you want. The idiot compiler writers who think they have license to second guess the program author ought to be disbarred but instead they get promoted because their product generates nice benchmark results. There was at least one commercial compiler which was reputed to have had special code to detect the release 1 Dhrystone and give, uh -- shall we say extraordinary, results. Don't ask. Thos Sumner Internet: thos@cca.ucsf.edu (The I.G.) UUCP: ...ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cca.ucsf!thos BITNET: thos@ucsfcca U.S. Mail: Thos Sumner, Computer Center, Rm U-76, UCSF San Francisco, CA 94143-0704 USA I hear nothing in life is certain but death and taxes -- and they're working on death. #include