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From: diamond@tkou02.enet.dec.com (diamond@tkovoa)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Re: Aggressive optimization
Message-ID: <1990Oct30.105241.9733@tkou02.enet.dec.com>
Date: 30 Oct 90 10:52:41 GMT
References: <2301@wn1.sci.kun.nl> <8960018@hpfcso.HP.COM>
Reply-To: diamond@tkou02.enet.dec.com (diamond@tkovoa)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Japan , Tokyo
Lines: 22

In article <8960018@hpfcso.HP.COM> mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes:
[looks like maybe Dr. Rubin's writing here]
||I have no objection to the compiler helping to optimize, and even making 
||suggestions to the programmer.  But I object to the first sentence; there
||should be NO details of the machine language, instruction overlap, etc.,
||hidden from the programmer.  The existence of a single machine instruction
||can determine whether or not a block of code, or an algorithm, should even
||be considered.
|Perhaps that is why it took you and a graduate student two weeks to port a
|sort routine (or whatever it was you were blathering about a few months ago).
|If you want machine level, write in assembly.  And no I don't particularly care
|to hear you rant about how existing assemblers don't have a flexible enough
|notation.  Lobby for better assemblers; don't try to cripple HLL's.

C was invented in order to be that better assembler.  If you want machine
level, you're supposed to program in C.  That is exactly the purpose for
which C was created.  If you want an HLL, use one; don't cripple C.

-- 
Norman Diamond, Nihon DEC    diamond@tkov50.enet.dec.com
                                    (tkou02 is scheduled for demolition)
We steer like a sports car:  I use opinions; the company uses the rack.