Hi, On Wed, 23 Nov 2005, Volker Kuhlmann wrote: > > My favourite library used to compile on a box with 64 meg ram. (gcc2.95) > > Then gcc 2.96 came along, and that library now requires 256 meg to compile. > > Presumably your library also grew in functionality. How much of this > functionality was direly needed to bring things up to the third > millennium? Gcc has had a huge amount of work done since 2.95. A lot of > it went into producing faster code. Compiling faster code requires > better optimisations, and better optimisation algorithms often require > more buffer memory to look at a larger part of the code at once. Neither > of this can justifiably be called bloat.
Nope. a)the library compiled on a redhat box with < 64 meg ram. b)upgrade the redhat box to the next release, and 256 megs was required. steps a) and b) used the same library. So it is not an increase in the library size. The crucial thing was that the compiler was significantly change soas to require more ram to compile the test library. But if the library is much bigger, there will be more cache misses in the CPU. - which lowers the final performance. Thus, library size is important. > > What could be called bloat is all this scheming and skinning nonsense, > instead of having one thing which works, and works well. However, the > big advantage is that it can be used to alleviate the biggest bloopers > from those who have not one yota of clue about user interface design. > Which is your side of the fence? Most programmers have no clue about interface design. However, the programmers who do not know they have no clue are the ones to "watch" Derek. -- Derek Smithies Ph.D. Any fool can write code that IndraNet Technologies Ltd. a computer can understand. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Good programmers write code ph +64 3 365 6485 that humans can understand. Web: http://www.indranet-technologies.com/ Martin Fowler
