On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 03:55:35PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Those who claim that there's not much difference between C and assembly > language have never run into a true CISC machine--or perhaps they rely > only on libraries someone else has written.
Now wait a minute here. C is a very old language. When it was first written as a recursive descent compiler, compiler technology was very primitive. K&R style code with primitive compilers pretty much resulted in high level assembler. Look at the keyword 'register' and the rationale given for it. > > Writing a true global optimizing compiler that generates code as good as > assembly is a nearly impossible task. When you are dealing with a > target machine with a large CISC set, it's really tough. Now on that we furiously agree. One problem has been getting that through to people who insist that C is still a high level assembler and has not changed from the time when it was a hand crafted recursive descent LR to the modern compiler with all the lovely optimisations we can do. The best way of viewing it is to acknowledge that modern C is effectively a new language compared to old K&R C that had no prototypes. > > Speaking from experience, again. ditto. > > > --Chuck > > Diane -- - d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db