Xref: utzoo comp.lang.fortran:1541 comp.lang.misc:2208
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!PLS
From: PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Branch frequencies (was Assembly or ....)
Message-ID: <11889@cup.portal.com>
Date: 29 Nov 88 07:24:02 GMT
References: <4113@enea.se>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 19

> Specifying branch frequencies

That's true. The very first Fortran compiler, done, I believe for the IBM
709, had a FREQUENCY statement that allowed specifying the probability of
each branch for IF and computed GOTO. This was standardized into Fortran II,
then later dropped in Fortran IV.

The reason for this is that the designers of the compiler knew that they
would be fighting an uphill battle against entrenched assembly coders, and
that the language and compiler would only be accepted if it could generate
better code than the average hand coder. Remember that this was back in the
days when people were cheap and hardware was expensive.

They suceeded.

This compiler was built back in the early '60s. To this day there have been
very very few compilers that match this one in optimizations.

  ++PLS