Re: Thompson's Plan 9 C compiler

In 91-08-058 pardo@cs.washington.edu writes:


>I can't speak for the average programmer, but I can speak for myself: I am
>willing to give up substantial speed of execution (a factor of 2, to pick a
>number), even in the final product, in order to gain productivity. I'm not
>worrying about compiler bugs, I'm saying that things which are inherenltly
>inefficient are often OK with me if I can get my program up and running --
>correctly -- in a decent amount of time.


William Wulf, architect of the BLISS-11 (high optimizing) compiler argues
with you by saying that inefficiency in his own programs is tolerable,
however he absolutely doesn't want to share a system with anyone else who
feels that way. He wants everybody else on the system, and the OS as well
to be compiling using an optimizing compiler so more cycles are available to
execute his code. I wish I had the exact quote, but somebody stole my copy
of Wulf's book.


Inefficiency is intolerable unless there are infinite, free cycles available.
It is also insulting to the sensibilities of software people who think of
themselves as engineers, designing code that is elegant as well as effective.
[Wulf wrote the Bliss book nearly 20 years ago. It'd be interesting to
find out if he still feels the same way. -John]
--

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