On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 5:27 AM, Fred van der Windt <[email protected]> wrote: >> there is a real thing to discuss behind all those stories, IMHO. Due to >> pipelining issues the proper order of instructions in the instruction stream >> becomes more important for modern hardware, and that is something that a >> human coder cannot do as good as a good optimizing compiler can. So I >> believe that ASSEMBLER programming will stay for some amount of time, >> because it is still important to manage those old application systems that >> are >> still around and working well, and it will continue to be important for some >> systems level work, but for application programming and new >> development, the future is elsewhere. > > I'm sure that an optimizing compiler can do an amazing job, but in this case > it was Enterprise COBOL vs handcoded Assembler. I have a hard time believing > that COBOL is faster than assembler in any scenario. Enterprise COBOL is our > 'main' programming language and I haven't seen it perform any optimization > worth mentioning (even with OPTIMIZE(FULL)). The current compiler still > generates virtually the same code as it's predecessors did many versions ago. > > Which means it is unforunate that Angel isn't able to post the code. > Something must be awfully wrong with the assembler code if it is twice as > slow as the Enterprise COBOL code... > > Fred! >
I'm guessing this is not an algorithm issue but an invocation and/or linkage issue. Unless there are un-needed loops in the handwritten code it would seem to be very difficult to be slower by the amount the OP mentioned. The OP did mention that the subroutine was RENT. If the asm routine was doing a getmain/freemain pair that would impact performance significantly. Also, the OP mentioned that certain IBM routines were being invoked as part of the algorithm. If a LOAD/DELETE pair were issued each time that would also negatively impact runtime. Without the code we may never know the answer. I'm wondering if it is possible for the OP to provide more detail in the way linkage and subroutine calls are done. > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > ATTENTION: > The information in this electronic mail message is private and > confidential, and only intended for the addressee. Should you > receive this message by mistake, you are hereby notified that > any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or use of this > message is strictly prohibited. Please inform the sender by > reply transmission and delete the message without copying or > opening it. > > Messages and attachments are scanned for all viruses known. > If this message contains password-protected attachments, the > files have NOT been scanned for viruses by the ING mail domain. > Always scan attachments before opening them. > ----------------------------------------------------------------- >
