From: seebs@solutions.solon.com (Peter Seebach)
Subject: Re: Ada to C/C++ translator needed
Date: 1996/09/30
Date: 1996-09-30T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <52p7hl$kq4@solutions.solon.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 01bbaee1$00ee1c20$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com
In article <01bbaee1$00ee1c20$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>,
Tim Behrendsen <tim@a-sis.com> wrote:
>I would conclude that for that *specific* problem, the C compiler
>did a bad job of optimization. As I frequently point out (and
>I frequently get abuse for it), optimizers are very imperfect
>beasts at best.
... Right, so we *know* for sure that there exists at least one case in which
C may be less efficient than Ada.
This proves, absolutely, that the general statement "C is more efficient than
Ada" is not true.
>Do you doubt that if we brought the writers of the Sun compiler
>and had them fix their optimizer, they couldn't make it produce
>*exactly* the same code as the Ada compiler (or Fortran compiler,
>for that matter)? Of course they could.
True. Could they beat the Ada or Fortran compiler? Not as likely.
Could they guarantee that, in the end, they would be able to produce better
code than the Ada compiler team? No.
>The real question that you refuse to come to terms with is, what
>is the average case over a large set of compilers over a large set
>of non-trivial programs over a large set of problem types? And
>this is a very difficult question to answer.
Yes. So difficult that it's essentially irrelevant. For that matter, a large
set of compilers has little relevance; all I care about is the best available
compilers.
>Your suggestion that comparing compilers on one platform for
>one program tells you something significant is laughable at
>best.
It does, though. It gives you a boundary.
>This is not because of optimization; this is because of the
>language and style in which projects are implemented. Now,
>this is a significant debatable question. Comparing the output
>of optimizers is completely worthless to the central question
>of whether REAL WORLD projects can be implement efficiently in
>a particular language or not.
"can be" and "will be" are completely different questions.
-s
--
Peter Seebach - seebs@solon.com - Copyright 1996 - http://www.solon.com/~seebs
Unix/C Wizard - send mail for help, or send money for consulting!
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~1996-09-30 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 46+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1996-09-25 0:00 Ada to C/C++ translator needed Emmanuel Champommier
1996-09-25 0:00 ` David Weller
1996-10-02 0:00 ` B|rje Norden
1996-10-04 0:00 ` David Weller
1996-10-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-10-05 0:00 ` Frank Manning
1996-10-06 0:00 ` Samuel Tardieu
1996-10-07 0:00 ` Richard Kenner
1996-10-07 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-10-08 0:00 ` Stephen Leake
1996-10-07 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-10-08 0:00 ` Frank Manning
1996-10-07 0:00 ` Erik Magnuson
1996-09-26 0:00 ` Ian Ward
[not found] ` <52feul$os2@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>
1996-09-28 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-09-29 0:00 ` Ken Pizzini
1996-09-29 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-09-29 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-09-30 0:00 ` William Clodius
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-10-01 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Peter Seebach
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-10-05 0:00 ` Lawrence Kirby
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Peter Seebach [this message]
1996-09-30 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-10-01 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-10-01 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Ian Ward
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Tim Behrendsen
1996-10-06 0:00 ` Tanmoy Bhattacharya
1996-10-06 0:00 ` Lawrence Kirby
1996-10-08 0:00 ` Peter Seebach
1996-10-07 0:00 ` Tanmoy Bhattacharya
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1996-10-02 0:00 Simon Johnston
1996-10-07 0:00 ` Richard Riehle
1996-10-09 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-10-15 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
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