Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!killer!vector!rpp386!jfh
From: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Optimal structure field ordering
Message-ID: <3459@rpp386.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jul 88 23:04:03 GMT
References: <163@navtech.uucp> <806@garth.UUCP> <254@obie.UUCP>
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (The Beach Bum)
Organization: Big "D" Home for Wayward Hackers
Lines: 22

In article <254@obie.UUCP> wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) writes:
>A little further though might show this idea to have some far-reaching
>bad karma.  It would be very difficult to write a file system portable
>across machines of varying architecture (i.e. Idris) if the compiler
>on each machine can arbitrarily re-arrange structures to suit its own
>whim.

it could be serious for any language to not specify how it rearranges
structures.  it could make it impossible for separate compilation to
work, period.

imagine if part of the strategy was that large sized code files
had their structures packed one way, while small sized code files went
a different way.  imagine worse still that the implementation didn't
have to tell you which one it picked!

- john.
-- 
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