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- Newsgroups: comp.compilers
- Path: sparky!uunet!world!iecc!compilers-sender
- From: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (J. Giles)
- Subject: Re: Compile Time vs. Run Time, Mixed Language Compiling, Fat Code
- Reply-To: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (J. Giles)
- Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:49:36 GMT
- Approved: compilers@iecc.cambridge.ma.us
- Message-ID: <93-01-065@comp.compilers>
- References: <93-01-041@comp.compilers> <93-01-049@comp.compilers>
- Keywords: optimize, performance, debug
- Sender: compilers-sender@iecc.cambridge.ma.us
- Lines: 32
-
- nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines) writes:
- > 4. Use of a language with a good type system eliminates the
- > edit-compile-bomb-edit cycle, replacing it with an
- > edit-typecheck-edit-typecheck cycle. Typechecking is (in general) much
- > faster than compilation because it includes no optimisation or code
- > transformations. An SML program which successfully typechecks will not
- > bomb at runtime.
-
- Then your programs are considerably different from what I'm familiar with.
- Most errors are not syntactic or static semantic errors (like type
- errors). The vast majority of debugging time is spent isolating and
- correcting problems which are not - and cannot be - found by the
- typechecks no matter how strict your type system is. To put it another
- way: people make mistakes and those mistakes which the compiler (or some
- analyzer) can find automatically are the least difficult to find and
- correct.
-
- > 6. You suggest that because compiler writers often work for compiler
- > companies rather than hardware companies, they either (a) don't know how
- > to tweak the hardware in the best way or (b) can't be bothered. [...]
-
- It seems to me that the main problem with compiler writers is not that
- they don't work for the hardware vendor (even those that don't often
- specialize in a single architecture). The main problem these days is that
- compiler writers don't actually *use* the language the compiler is written
- to compile. Such compiler jockeys don't understand the issues which are
- important to the users.
- --
- J. Giles
- --
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