On Monday 10 Nov 2003 19:54, Andrew Suffield wrote: > We refuse to accept it blindly because it's wrong. There have been > cases when architecture-specific optimisations have made programs run > slower (recently the instruction ordering for that via i686 chip > comes to mind); GCC gets it wrong from time to time, and there's no > reason to think it's currently right (since everybody who asserts it > is has failed to provide anything but circumstancial evidence, and > we all know that software sucks).
Don't all these arguments apply to architecture independent optimizations also? Incidentally, your standard of proof "There have been cases" is pretty weak, I would say "there have been cases" where architectural optimizations have increased performance.
