On 04/05/2019 18:06, J. Gareth Moreton wrote:
I've noticed that my take on coding is somewhat different to others at times. I tend not to trust the compiler to make the most efficient code.
You generally shouldn't, and it indeed generally won't do it either. That's why even with the most advanced optimising compilers out there, some low-level and performance-critical routines like memcpy are still hand-coded in assembly on all platforms.
However, whenever the compiler can figure something out by itself without intervention from the programmer, no matter how small, there are several advantages: 1) It has a much lower risk of introducing bugs. The analysis/transformation can of course have bugs, but once it's stable, it should be good for a long time. Conversely, while a programmer may have a good idea of how a routine works when they have just written it, code and tends to change, and at some point the modifiers are probably going to get out of sync with what the code does. 2) It will be applied much wider. You don't need people to go through entire bodies of existing code to look which modifier could help where and add them. The compiler will just do everything automatically, even for old legacy code that no one has looked at in years (and want to keep it that way). 3) Programmers can focus more on function rather than performance. This generally leads to clearer and more maintainable code, which improves productivity.
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