Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!spacm1!resmgt04
From: resmgt04@spacm1.spac.spc.com (Bill Robertson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran and C performance
Message-ID: <2578.2869dd95@spacm1.spac.spc.com>
Date: 27 Jun 91 12:44:05 GMT
References: <15634@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <26334@lanl.gov> <PRZEMEK.91Jun24225047@rrdstrad.nist.gov> <26453@beta.gov> <911@cadlab.sublink.ORG>
Organization: Security Pacific Automation Co., LA, CA
Lines: 23

In article <911@cadlab.sublink.ORG>, martelli@cadlab.sublink.ORG (Alex Martelli) writes:
> Current situation is less clear.  I have experimentally recoded pieces
> of VAX/VMS Fortran into C, manually and with great care, obtaining good
> speedups for non-computational tasks.  Examining the resulting machine
> code, it appears as if Vax Fortran is trying very hard to make use of
> the VAX's complex instruction set, while Vax C appears to be using a
> simpler subset, and concentrating instead on register optimization, with
> some code-generation help from by-value passing of input parameters and 
> by-reference passing of character strings, while portable Fortran has
> one inevitable further indirection, going by-reference for numbers and
> by-descriptor for character stuff.  

For what it's worth anymore, a DEC spokesperson at a DECUS workshop (on HLL
code generation and optimization) a couple of years ago said that VAX Fortran
has a privileged position at DEC, with its own code gen and optimization
routines.  All other DEC HLLs were said to share another set of gen-opt 
routines.

Is this (still) so?
-- 
Bill Robertson   "Lots of people can sing louder and longer than Elvis, too,
                  but who cares?"
                                                       Eval Knievel