🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3668:04:34:52@stealth.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>The argument is whether hand optimizations are bad. My point is that
>there are optimizations that current compilers can't do at all in
>practice, even though there are no barriers in theory; if those must
>be done by hand, what's wrong with doing simpler ones by hand? You
>can't draw the line between trivial optimizations and so-called linear
>programming (inductive generalization, trading space for time, or
>whatever you want to call it).

Sure we can draw a line.  If the compiler can, in practise,
save us some work, it should.  Extending your argument will 
have us adding on our fingers again

	I don't need the machine to do this!
	After all, it's not my equal in number theory.

Better seems

	I don't need to do this!
	I've got machines to do it for me.


(Do you suppose we could modify an Eliza to carry on these arguments for us?)

Preston Briggs
preston@titan.rice.edu