On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 1:14 AM, Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwa...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 2018-07-20, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote: > >> While I suspect Python isn't micro-optimizing, take into account >> that most processors do have an "increment"/"decrement" operation -- >> since that is done so much at the low-level. Also, just general >> integer addition is common, so the hardware may be optimized for >> doing them fast. Boolean operations may not be as well optimized. > > Boolean operations are also very common at the lowest level, and they > involve far simpler logic than does addition. I refuse to believe > there's an extant processor in common use where an ADD is faster than > an OR unless somebody shows me the processor spec sheet. >
"Faster than"? I'd agree with you. But "as fast as"? I believe that's how most modern CPUs already operate. (Well, mostly.) There are sophisticated methods of daisy-chaining the carry bit that mean the overall addition can be performed remarkably quickly, and the end result is a one-clock ADD operation, same as OR. For most data, most code, and most situations, integer addition is exactly as fast as integer bit shift. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
