Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!ima!johnl From: johnl@ima.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.compilers Subject: Re: Assembly language programming preferable to HLL ??? Message-ID: <281@ima.UUCP> Date: Fri, 5-Dec-86 07:59:43 EST Article-I.D.: ima.281 Posted: Fri Dec 5 07:59:43 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 8-Dec-86 04:06:35 EST Reply-To: harvard!dartvax!uvm-gen!cavrak (Steve Cavrak) Lines: 30 Approved:Apparently-To: uvm-gen!dartvax!decvax!ima!johnl > 3. The assembly program will run 2-5 times faster. > 3. As one of the compiler writers for NS , If assembler programs > , as a rule , ran 2 times faster than our compiler, > I would be greatly surprized and FIX THE COMPILER ! ==================== Precisely. What the CL author may have been reacting to, however, is the very poor state of compilers on the market. The latest BYTE magazine has benchmarks on performance of several PC Pascal compilers. Most are so $%#@ing slow that it makes you cry. And then Turbo makes the matter "worse" by proving that compilers don't have to be slow at all! Maybe the availability of different compilers will get compiler writers thinking about their art form better. (And while you're at it, fix the linkers too!) [I am going to wrap up this discussion unless somebody has something particularly different to contribute. It appears we all agree that A) micro computer compilers are of generally poor quality, B) good compilers exist, which produce code about as good as hand-coded, and C) the author of the CL article was not well-informed about compilers outside the micro world. Oh yes, and a machine-independent assembler is an oxymoron, unless perhaps you consider a language like C to be one. -John] -- Send compilers mail to ima!compilers or, in a pinch to Levine@YALE.EDU Plausible paths are { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale | bbncca}!ima Please send responses to the originator of the message -- I cannot forward mail accidentally sent back to compilers. Meta-mail to ima!compilers-request