Re: [9fans] splitting the compiler

[Matt H <matt@proweb.co.uk>]

> many (i'd have said nearly all) of the worthwhile fancier global
> optimisations are perfectly portable, however much code they take to
> implement. 

As I said before, all of this concerns me for the future speed
imporvements on the next round of hardware. In the Itanium tech reviews
here :

http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s=1005&a=22477&app=7&ap=8,00.asp

it mentions :

"Intel's formally stated goal was to shift complexity out of the processor
logic and to the compiler. "

 From what I know of Intel it could well be conciously making this move as
part of it's destructive competitive instincts with regard to both AMD and
other compiler vendors.

This article :
http://www.open-mag.com/754088105111.htm

does a shoot out between Intel's C++ compiler and GCC, reporting that for
the OBLcpu benchmark suite Intel's compiler, on average, produced code
that ran 47% faster than GCC! (and sometimes 100% faster).

Intel's compiler, of course, made full use of SIMD instructions but,
significantly, showed a similar improvement over GCC when targetting
Athlons!

I'm glad 8c compiles quickly. Although I was disappointed the first time I
compiled a kernel. I went to make a cup of tea while it compiled only to
return for my cup and the bugger had already finished!

M