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From: kurt@fluke.UUCP (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: EA orthogonality and Doug's FLAME
Message-ID: <639@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-May-85 12:04:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax2.639
Posted: Tue May 21 12:04:54 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 23-May-85 01:24:44 EDT
Reply-To: kurt@fluke.UUCP (Kurt Guntheroth)
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 21

Doug Pardee must be a user.  As a potential compiler writer I must make some
comment.

Of course the reason computers exist is to run programs.  Dumb point.

Of course it doesn't matter at the application level if the machine is
orthogonal or not.  Right?  Wrong Doug.

Doug, do you like it when the compiler produces slow or buggy code?  Of
course you don't.  Even a 'user' should understand the utility of fast
reliable code.  And this is what makes CPU orthogonality so important.
If a company has X man-months to spend developing a compiler, they can
spend it in a variety of ways.  They can spend their time screwing with
a braindamaged machine language trying to generate any code at all, or
they can go on to silly little things like optimization and testing if
the instruction set does not get in the way.  Or, they can just double 
or triple the design time and charge it to 'users'.
-- 
Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!kurt