bearophile wrote:
The Oracle JavaVM is already using this optimization, but indeed it doesn't
need to keep compatibility with the C compiler. This shows pointer
compression in C and the like:
http://llvm.org/pubs/2005-06-12-MSP-PointerComp.html
Oh, I forgot to mention. Back in the 16 bit days, I invented something called a
"handle pointer".
http://www.digitalmars.com/ctg/handle-pointers.html
It was a special pointer type that was dereferenced through a function call. The
particular implementation of it was to enable to use bank-switched EMS memory as
if it were regularly addressible memory.
In D this would be better off making the special pointer types a user defined
struct type. Compiler support isn't necessary.
