🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <PCG.90Feb13161349@rupert.cs.aber.ac.uk>, by pcg@rupert.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi):
> [...]
> to the vast effort expended on what by comparison is an unsafe,
> inefficient shortcut, "optimizers", [...]

You keep saying that.  However, you have yet to prove (or even make a
good case) that optimizers are either unsafe or inefficient.  To be sure,
I have no absolute objection to 'hints' that help the compiler do a
better job.  BUT - the compiler should be expected to do a reasonably
good job in the absence of such 'hints'.  Furthermore, a compiler with a
good optimizer should be expected to do _better_ than a simple compiler
even on the 'hint' filled code!

After all, the _PURPOSE_ of a compiler is to translate from source code
to semantically equivalent machine code.  Unfortunately, there are an 
infinite number of semantically equivalent translations!!!  Optimization
is a word for several compiler techniques of selecting one of these
translations which is - at least - reasonably efficient.  In fact, in
order to use the _programmer's_ time most effectively, the compiler
writer should get the compiler to produce the most efficient code he
can.

(By the way, I DO have an objection to the 'uglifying hints' that C makes
available.  It seems to me that conveying such information to the compiler
shouldn't require destroying the natural flow of the source code.)

J. Giles