Xref: utzoo comp.arch:9601 comp.lang.misc:2907
Path: utzoo!utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!bnr-public!schow
From: schow@bnr-public.uucp (Stanley Chow)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Complex Instructions
Message-ID: <484@bnr-fos.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 89 05:05:23 GMT
References: <504@daitc.daitc.mil> <1277@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Sender: news@bnr-fos.UUCP
Reply-To: schow%BNR.CA.bitnet@relay.cs.net (Stanley Chow)
Followup-To: comp.lang.misc
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 50
Summary:
Keywords:

Since this is moving from architecture to language, I have set
Follow-up: to comp.lang.misc.

In article <1277@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <504@daitc.daitc.mil>, jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger) writes:
>> In article <426@bnr-fos.UUCP>, schow@bnr-public (Stanley Chow) writes:
>> >it is not necessary for all programmers to know enough to use
>> >the specail instructions. Some guru can set it up and everyone can
>> >then use the pre-built modules. Depending on how you set everything
>> >up, the compiler does not have to be smart at all.
>
>I agree it is not necessary for ALL programmers to know how to really
>use the computer, any more than it is necessary for the house painter
>to be an artist.  But the artist cannot set up the modules for a
>house painter to produce a work of art.
>

This is probably a major difference in opinion between groups. You
are an artist and feel constrained by the languages that are designed
for painting houses. Much of the programming in this world is done by
house painters as opposed to artists. 

In the case of our project, all "artists" who wants/needs to are turned
into guru's and set up utilities for themselves and others to use. The
system is by no means frozen.         


I can understand your pleas for flexibility. Forturnately, I have quite
a bit of it. I am allowed to change (or at least influence) everything
from hardware, firware, language, compiler, operating system through to
any application code. If someone sees a new use for some instructions,
we change the utilities or compiler as needed. New hardware that will
be usefull? We will just throw it into the next revision.


Having said that, I must point out that we are (very?) unusual. Most
projects are not big enough to support this style of working. if you
have to rely on a commercial compiler; chances are the compiler was
not optimized for your needs. This means the compiler writer had to
trade-off many different demands. Unforturnately (from your point
of view), portability is high priority, good debuger is important,
good object code from protable source is compulsory. Since most
people don't care about flexibility to take advantage of different 
architecutes, you don't get that from most commercial compilers.


Stanley Chow        BitNet:  schow@BNR.CA
BNR		    UUCP:    ..!psuvax1!BNR.CA.bitnet!schow
(613) 763-2831		     ..!utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!schow%bnr-public
I am just a small cog in a big machine. I don't represent nobody.