Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!gatech!linus!munck
From: munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: using (ugh!  yetch!) assembler
Message-ID: <37406@linus.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jul 88 21:14:47 GMT
References: <6341@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <60859@sun.uucp> <474@m3.mfci.UUCP> <11674@steinmetz.ge.com> <20921@beta.lanl.gov>
Reply-To: munck@faron.UUCP (Robert Munck)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA
Lines: 23

In article <20921@beta.lanl.gov> jlg@beta.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>In article <11674@steinmetz.ge.com>, davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes:
>>   How about a large program? A good C compiler will find common
>> subexpressions, partial results, etc. ...
>
>Also, most C compilers do a miserable job at common subexpression
>analysis, strength reduction, etc..  A critical part of your code
>should be rewritten in several different languages - then you keep
>the one that produces the best code.  Of course, this assumes that
>you can mix languages on the host machine.  ...

Mixing languages is not a terrific idea if your program is to be
maintained and enhanced over the years.  Languages change, too, and
trying to keep up with diverging languages...

Anyway, what's all this discussion of C?  I don't consider C to be
a high-level language; it's more of an assembler with a powerful but
obscure set of macros.  C is probably the only computer language that's
older than most of the programmers using it.  (FORTRAN and COBOL are
even older, sure, but most of their users are getting even greyer.)
Let's not confuse C with real HOLs like Modula-2 and Ada.
                      -- Bob Munck, MITRE
                      -- ..!linus!munck.UUCP, munck@mitre-bedford.ARPA