On Sunday 03 June 2007 07:59, Jerry Feldman wrote: > On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:03:34 +0100 > > G T Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Some assembler code is truly ugly (using 100s of NOPS for timing is > > one example I can think off), where timing or speed is essential > > one will nearly always get a better result with well written > > assembler (it often is not pretty to look at at).. > > Just a general comment on this since I was one of the authors of the > Unix/Windows NT assembler for the Alpha chip. (This is a bit of a > generalization) Alpha chip could execute multiple simultaneous > streams (2 or 4 depending on the chip version), but the instructions > had to be ordered properly for this to happen. We used a "scheduler" > as an optimization as the last pass of the assembler. In some cases, > using NOPs had a positive performance effect. Additionally, in the > Intel Itanium chip, they pack 6 instructions together, and properly > placed NOPs help performance.
And the real point for any modern microprocessor is that it's very difficult for human programmers to properly optimize the instruction streams when writing in assembly. Assembly programming's domain continues to shrink with the ongoing advancement of both processor and compiler / programming language technologies. Combine this with the need for increased programmer productivity and assembler is left with littler more than niche applications. Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
