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From: preston@titan.rice.edu (Preston Briggs)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Compilers vs. architecture
Message-ID: <4812@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 8 Feb 90 18:30:36 GMT
References: <8905@portia.Stanford.EDU>
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Organization: Rice University, Houston
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In article <19233@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> jskuskin@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jeffrey Kuskin) writes:

>Isn't one of the RISC folks' main arguments for simple instruction sets
>that current compilers don't effectively exploit the complex addressing
>modes and instructions supported in CISC chips?  Perhaps someone would
>like to speculate on what progess the next decade will bring in
>compiler technology...

Code generators are are powerful enough to handle most complex addressing
modes in a locally optimal fashion.  However, if we're doing lots
of global optimization, the need for complex addresssing modes
doesn't arise (very often, when you've got enough registers, ...)

My small bet for the 90's is lots more work on using dependence
analysis for scalar machines, particularly managing memory
hierarchies.  Everybody who optimizes languages with arrays
is going to have to get into dependence analysis.

More work in software pipelining, interprocedural analysis and
optimization, pointer analysis???  Tools for writing parallel
and distributed code??  Minimizing TLB misses?

Preston Briggs
preston@titan.rice.edu