lkml.org 
[lkml]   [1998]   [Nov]   [20]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: Linux-asm (was A patch for linux 2.1.127)
On Thu, 19 Nov 1998, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:

> Remember that a performance advantage worth 1 year of hardware
> improvement won't just disappear after a year. You still get a 1-year
> lead, and only lose it slowly as processors change and compilers
> improve.

Ermm. The gcc compiler's backend is at least 10 years out of date, so I'm
told, hence right now it doesn't optimise very well, and does occasionally
bugger up the odd one or two programs. They might improve this for egcs
1.2 or 1.3 though.

I still think that egcs/gcc needs to be consigned to the dustbin of
history and a completely new compiler needs to be developed using the very
latest technology, most importantly in the frontend which really does need
to do some optimising before passing to the backend.

Someone once proposed letting frontend compilers emit well-defined pcode,
and letting the backend optimise/translate the pcode into native code. We
get more stablity in the front ends and it is a lot easier to recode the
backend for every architecture it is ported to.

It's certainly an interesting thought though.

Cheers,
Alex.

---
/\_/\ Legalise cannabis now!
( o.o ) Grow some cannabis today!
> ^ < Peace, Love, Unity and Respect to all.

Check out http://www.tahallah.demon.co.uk
Linux lo-pc3035a 2.1.128 #8 Fri Nov 13 09:19:51 EST 1998
One Intel Pentium 166MHz processor, 66.36 total bogomips, 16M RAM
System library 5.4.44


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2005-03-22 13:45    [W:0.146 / U:1.124 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site