Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause? Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 13:30:12 -0700 Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 55 Message-ID: <8760sb2a0b.fsf@garlic.com> References: <20160711140417.e9cf4c22fca7361420bd688b@eircom.net> <1637708071.489943284.456428.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <35b64ff3-6222-45ab-8023-771ec225b147@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="6a701f7a2f120c3c3ec794af16136f6c"; logging-data="21727"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18OTBBT2tpVvZBFkSqNVkXv1oyPPkE1awI=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.94 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:p+NbfsBr89Av4vh2mEnrMjE22r4= sha1:lfuy6GAehbyi7ipKzIdkNcHVmSo= Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:167019 Charlie Gibbs writes: > I've mentioned the story of how a Structured Programming zealot > went up one side of me and down the other for committing the > sin of uttering the profane word GOTO while suggesting ways > to optimize a program whose CPU usage was prohibitively high. > Said genius was the one who declared all subscripts as COMP-3 > (packed decimal); simply changing them to COMP-4 (binary) > cut 30% off the CPU time. early 70s, I wrote a PLI program to analyze assembler listings ... contructing instruction representation & instruction flow, looking for register use before set ... also generate psuedo-code representation using structure if/then/else, while, etc. constructions. Used for analysis of cp67 and vm370 assembler source listings, one of the issues is that assembler condition had two-bit condition setting ... and some highly optimized kernel code could effectively make use of 3-way & 4-way condition branch/goto. In some case it could be easily understood on 60line listing (paper) page ... but converted to structured psuedo-code could be nested depth >15 that was almost impossible to understand. some past posts http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#12 360 "OS" & "TSS" assemblers http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#26 S-P-F (was Mainframe operating systems) http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#36 Assembly language formatting on IBM systems http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#38 GOTOs cross-posting http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#34 Macros and base register question http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#21 REXX still going strong after 25 years http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#36 Vintage computers are better than modern crap ! http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#35 Shipwrecks http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#16 [Lit.] Buffer overruns http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#52 Where should the type information be? http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2006e.html#32 transputers again was: The demise of Commodore http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#1 Greatest Software Ever Written? http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#27 Why these original FORTRAN quirks? http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#21 "The Elements of Programming Style" http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style" http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#9 "The Elements of Programming Style" http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#57 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C? http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#65 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C? http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#49 Any benefit to programming a RISC processor by hand? http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#30 Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#43 Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#32 Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#65 You know you've been Lisp hacking to long when http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#37 Language first, hardware second http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#49 "How do you feel about 'gotos'" http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#14 Dennis Ritchie http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#60 New HD http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#69 [Poll] Computing favorities http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#24 You thought IEFBR14 was bad? Try GNU's /bin/true code -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970