Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Optimizing Message-ID: <5020:Nov1518:23:0790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Date: 15 Nov 90 18:23:07 GMT References: Organization: IR Lines: 21 In article gessel@carthage.cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel) writes: > Along the lines of optimization and pointerfull/pointerless languages, any > one know much about languages which take suggestions for compilation (like > many lisps), or compilers which automatically use profiling to improve > optimization? By now there are quite a few compilers that use feedback information to improve code placement. I haven't seen any that use it for more intelligent decisions, but presumably that'll become common during this decade. ``Suggestions for compilation'' is too broad for me to answer the first half of your question. Lots of languages and compilers let you make suggestions for one thing or another. What I'd love to see is a way to turn on optimizer debugging output for a section of code. The optimizer would print out everything that it looks for while optimizing, what it finds, and what it's not sure about. Then the programmer can make assertions to fill in the missing gaps. ---Dan