22 Oct
2006
22 Oct
'06
11:45 a.m.
Jim Leonard wrote:
Jay West wrote:
A compiler is supposed to generate assembler-level
(machine-level)
constructs for what the high-level language is asking for. Nothing is
more efficient than that. If the compiler produced code that was so
incredibly obtuse and broken that it took longer to execute an operation
than an interpreter, the compiler was a piece of crap.
It could be that it is using 32 bit ints under FORTRAN as a default.
Looking at FORTRAN IV for the PDP-8 you have 24 bit ints standard
so all you integer math is a call to suboutines.
I call serious BS on the statement "some
interpreters were faster than
some compilers". People are going to have to back that up with actual
examples before it becomes believable.
Some verions of FORTRAN for the PDP 11 was
threaded code too.