Re: Writing fast compilers...

davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
13 Aug 91 13:11:08 GMT

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
Re: Writing fast compilers... pcg@aber.ac.uk (1991-08-11)
Re: Writing fast compilers... preston@helena.rice.edu (1991-08-11)
Re: Writing fast compilers... pardo@gar.cs.washington.edu (1991-08-13)
Re: Writing fast compilers... davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (1991-08-13)
Re: Writing fast compilers... preston@helena.rice.edu (1991-08-13)
Re: Writing fast compilers... alex@vmars.tuwien.ac.at (1991-08-13)
Re: Writing fast compilers... pcg@aber.ac.uk (1991-08-14)
Re: Writing fast compilers... markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (1991-08-16)
Re: Writing fast compilers... glew@pdx007.intel.com (1991-08-16)
Re: Writing fast compilers... blenko-tom@CS.YALE.EDU (1991-08-16)
[3 later articles]
| List of all articles for this month |

Newsgroups: comp.compilers
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Keywords: performance, design
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
References: <1991Aug10.132405.19359@walter.bellcore.com> <20167@helios.TAMU.EDU> <PCG.91Aug11154854@aberdb.aber.ac.uk>
Date: 13 Aug 91 13:11:08 GMT

[From comp.arch -John]


In article <PCG.91Aug11154854@aberdb.aber.ac.uk> pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:


| Now, now, let's not get carried away. He has done a clone of Turbo
| Pascal, or of the small/fast Pascal compiler from ETH. It is good
| implementation architecture, yes, but it shines only in comparison with
| the awful things we usually get and accept.


    Single pass compilers are hardly that recent, and small compilers are
not new. The original B compiler (two pass because of memory limits) was
19 pages of code for one pass and either 22 or 29 for the other (that's
going back a way).


    Note that true one pass compilers can not generate best possible code
for some machines, notably those which have a short branch instruction,
since forward jumps must be coded as long jumps. I believe the plan 9
compiler delays code generation for a bit, so peephole optimization can
be done. That permits a little code motion, better register use, etc.
--
bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
    GE Corp R&D Center, Information Systems Operation, tech support group
    Moderator comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 386-users digest.
--


Post a followup to this message

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.