Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!aiva.edinburgh.ac.UK!jeff
From: jeff@aiva.edinburgh.ac.UK (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: Extending the address space of MIT Cscheme
Message-ID: <21122.8805051423@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 5 May 88 14:23:49 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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> Date: Wed, 4 May 88 11:12:23 MDT
> From: shebs <(Stanley T. Shebs)shebs%defun@edu.utah.cs>

> Attempts to optimize the C code implementing a virtual machine.  If
> you use a virtual machine, you've already lost speedwise; doing
> complicated C hacks isn't going to recover much for you. (Presumably
> that's the reason for hundreds of C macros that could have been
> function calls.)

C hacks (if you want to call them that) can make a difference,
particularly (on many machines) if they let you avoid procedure
calls (slow call instructions, parameters moved from registers to
stack and back).  In-line procedures would be better than C macros,
but C doesn't have them.