Unsafe Optimizations

Alan Holub writes:
> [...] I strongly believe that if I know that an
> optimization is unsafe, and I understand the issues, and know that the
> optimization is safe in the CURRENT case, that I should be allowed to use
> that optimization if I want to. [...]


I believe that programmers (in general) know what they are doing. I do *not*
believe that programmers (in general) know what the compiler is doing. And I
am absolutely sure that This Is A Good Thing, because compilers change faster
than languages. Therefore programs relying on the inner workings of a
compiler are bound to become obsolete much faster than those relying solely
on the specified semantics of the programming language.


*If* a certain optimization is generally unsafe and *if* it is safe in the
current case and *if* we need the speed *then* we should go and hand-tune the
output of the compiler. No, I don't want to maintain code written that way.
Yes, I would always prefer it over code relying on the behavior of a certain
compiler, as it again relies solely on well-specified behavior (of the target
machine, in this case).


--
Alexander Vrchoticky Technical University Vienna, Dept. for Real-Time Systems
Tel: +43/222/58801-8168 Fax: +43/222/569149
e-mail: alex@vmars.at / alex@vmars.tuwien.ac.at / vmars!alex@relay.eu.net
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