Pierre R. Mai <pmai@acm.org> wrote:
+---------------
| I can't actually see why compiling to native code would be a bad idea,
| given that we have been doing this for 50 years.  Unless the use of a
| virtual machine buys you something you _actually_ need, why use it, if
| you can avoid it?
+---------------

Well, for one thing, these days primary-I-cached CPU cycles are now a *LOT*
cheaper than secondary cache misses, so if by byte-coding (or "tree-coding")
with relatively high-level VM functions one can get the *size* of the program
way down, one should be able to speed up the runtime significantly!

Whereas open-coding a whole bunch of primitives into native code only seems
to me to be an invitation to code bloat, and hence cache-thrashing...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 41L-955		rpw3@sgi.com
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