On Nov 21, 2007 7:24 PM, Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Raymond Wold wrote: > > On Wed, 2007-11-21 at 14:11 -0500, Don Dailey wrote: > > > >> Experience in a language is a factor, but nobody refutes that properly > >> coded C is fastest (next to properly code assembly) and if performance > >> is your goal, then anything else accepts some compromise. That > >> compromise may work well for a particular individual and may even > >> produce a stronger program for them, but it's still a handicap. > >> > > > > Do you have anything to back this up? I was under the impression that > > most decent assembly programmers agreed that they can't compete with the > > best C compilers. Assembly is for when you *need* to be in touch with > > the very lowest level, which in most cases you don't, because lots and > > lots of other assembly programmers have been there before you and > > distilled their knowledge into really really smart compilers that know > > more, and can try out more, than you ever could in a lifetime. > > > I know that there are assembler programmers who specialize in the skills > requires to beat C code. However, there is no need to back this up. > You can express any C program in assembler and better C compilers do > this better and they continue to improve. Until C compilers are > perfect, then it will always be possible to express a (non-trivial) > program in more efficient assembler code. >
But the point is that humans are also not perfect, and so they too can't automatically write the optimal assembly code. The question is whether the massively superior processing power of a computer gives it an advantage over the creative ability of a human. Colin _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
