Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcdc!hpislx!hplvli!boyne
From: boyne@hplvli.HP.COM (Art Boyne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: High- vs. low-level languages (Was: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on)
Message-ID: <360013@hplvli.HP.COM>
Date: 3 May 89 15:17:53 GMT
References: <664@tukki.jyu.fi>
Organization: Loveland Inst. Div
Lines: 17

davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (Wm. E. Davidsen Jr) writes:
>	Having coded some fairly large (20-100k line) programs in
>various languages, assembler isn't going to make a big difference in
>speed or size over a reasonable C (or other) compiler. With a good
>algorithm for the job you should see less than 2:1 in speed and 20% in
>size (based on recoding a few critical routines).

Wouldn't it be nice if this were really true for all of us.  I work
in the Motorola 68000 world, not the Intel 80x86 world, and I have
yet to see a C compiler that I can't beat 2:1 in total code size and up
to 8:1 in speed in tight loops when coding in assembler.  I just finished
recoding about 2200 lines of C into about 2400 lines of assembler, and
these were the numbers I got.  This was for an IEEE-488.2-conformant
GPIB driver.  If you ask me why I rewrote it - because I had performance
goals 4x what the C compiler would give me.

Art Boyne, boyne@hplvla.hp.com