From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <1536135561.3026040.1497260856.5FF478D2@webmail.messagingengine.com> From: Ethan Gardener To: 9fans@9fans.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" In-Reply-To: <20180904202500.d4e629511996125d643d7635@eigenstate.org> Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2018 09:19:21 +0100 References: <20180904202500.d4e629511996125d643d7635@eigenstate.org> Subject: Re: [9fans] Is Plan 9 C "Less Dangerous?" Topicbox-Message-UUID: e0f82b6e-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Wed, Sep 5, 2018, at 4:25 AM, Ori Bernstein wrote: > > > CPUs, such as Intel/AMD x64 > > are vastly more complex so "optimising" C compilers are trying to make > > something simple take advantage of something far more complex. > > Ironically, because of the complexity in the CPUs, many of the optimizations > make less of a difference now -- they're essentially optimizing just in time > compilers under the hood, so even terrible code will run acceptably quickly. This is an example of a real benefit to complexity, one I'm personally happy about. It's good for us 9fans, whether we want to use Plan 9's 20 year old compilers, or implement our own compilers for new or existing languages, or whatever. My ego still tries to complain about using something I don't understand, but in doing so it's really fighting its own interests. -- The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer