Re: When/why did function calls get cheap?

Peter Seibel wrote:
> My understanding is that in Olden Times, Real Programmers avoided
> using lots of small functions because the overhead of a function call
> was considered high. But then, somewhere along the way, the compiler
> writers got clever and made function calls cheap so now nobody worries
> about it. Is that more or less correct? And if so, what happened to
> make function calls cheap. It seems that there's a non-trivial amount
> of work to do to set up a stack frame, etc. compared to just
> continuing along in a straight line processing instructions that do
> the actual work--are there deep black-magic optimizations or did the
> relative costs of something change or something else entirely?


- Compilers started to get smarter, and do inlining of small functions, or
    choose the most optimal calling conventions for small functions (no stack
    frame, sav regse by caller and a few parameters in registers)


- (on Intel) call's DID get cheaper with branch prediction e.d.


- Languages got more high level, and there became costlier constructs than
      the mere procedure call.

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