Re: Robert Dewar's great article about the Strengths of Ada over other langauges in multiprocessing!

[Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com>]

On 15 Mar, 03:29, gp...@axonx.com wrote:

> IMHO it should not be keeping compiler designers from flushing the
> contents of the registers down to lowest level

Do you know that it can cost you two orders of magnitude of
performance loss?

> Performance penalties should not be a cover for not
> doing this.

On the contrary. Otherwise it would make no sense to introduce
multicore architectures at all.

> What also seems to be alarming is proliferation of
> architecture specificity into the programming techniques.

No, there is no specificity. I have an impression that you still try
to keep the volatile mess and then declare that the platform specifity
breaks your code, but the truth is totally inverse - you have broken
code, period. That's it - don't expect compiler vendors to "fix the
world" and penalize those who do things correctly.
If you write correct code (yes, forget once and for all the volatile
keyword), there is absolutely no architecture specificity to worry
about.

> What will happen when architecture change?

Nothing. Correct programs will still work and broken programs will
still be broken.

> C started as a language for very simple microprocessor architecture
> language.  Now architectures outgrew what the language was originally
> designed for.

No, you can still target modern architectures with this "outdated"
language. Just do it right. Interestingly, this also applies to Ada
(wow! I've managed to keep the discussion on-topic! ;-) ).

> Practitioners are simply patching things up trying to
> make 12-year's old pants to fit on 16-years old boy.

Yes, you are unfortunately right here. Practitioners have to worry
about truckloads of broken code.

--
Maciej Sobczak * www.msobczak.com * www.inspirel.com