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From: lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: using (ugh!  yetch!) assembler
Message-ID: <2442@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 88 16:46:16 GMT
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This whole "debate" is silly. Didn't anyone ever hear of portability?

As for the question of performance gains: this is partly:
	the quality of optimizing compilers		
		(Improving)
	the occasional inappropriateness of a language's semantics
		(usually only matters to OS people and such)
	
I've seen some big wins from recoding into assembler. I've seen bigger
wins from switching compilers, and even bigger wins from rethinking
the algorithm. The biggest wins come from rethinking the problem.
Yes, I can give examples.
-- 
Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science