Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Optimization by programmers Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2026 06:45:15 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 31 Message-ID: <8633vawrv8.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <1177fdi$26ea4$1@dont-email.me> <117a9ph$37j48$1@dont-email.me> <1788467534-5857@newsgrouper.org> <1788484298-5857@newsgrouper.org> <1788570532-5857@newsgrouper.org> <117juut$2erud$1@dont-email.me> <117p8dq$3f0og$1@paganini.bofh.team> <117pq4r$gi10$1@dont-email.me> <117thvb$1ocse$1@dont-email.me> <2026Sep10.192237@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <1736alhffrj7iuhfsesdo31bofc0m8pr12@4ax.com> <2026Sep11.083321@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <6aa5876f.783937@news.eternal-september.org> <11890f6$1jr26$1@dont-email.me> <118994e$1nh2k$1@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:45:17 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="2558985"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18hco5GyQxI43/DsZtptrQ9ciS1/1lvrfo="; posting-host="d22a44f9db2d80b4aae7023976fc11e4" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:h9Kk2dK8p6p9Zgfu7Ozv1r8DZf0= sha1:VWMgf9q0RlSxcT8UNoNS+H3NCOg= sha256:E17949dDlxH6R9SOFXVG/jQLEBxUcBm9aXqgXsoMLgs= sha1:FC4OWpzL2ls5YEzwwUJ61yuOAK0= sha256:c0XL73Sqa9vl4w+vTHLKgPbsZW/6KA/loaceitVXD4E= Xref: csiph.com comp.arch:118035 Thomas Koenig writes: > Terje Mathisen schrieb: > >> I studied the Itanium architecture manuals and amused myself by >> writing asm kernels that took good advantage of the large register >> set, including the rotating ones. >> >> Not at all a nightmare! >> >> In fact, writing x87 asm by hand, trying to keep every working >> variable live on the 8-element stack, is significantly harder >> IMHO. > > Stacks are hard to program for, at least for me (even large ones > where you don't get the overrun problem). > > Some time ago, I wrote some rather complicated Postscript formulas. > I used two approaches: Putting a comment with the current stack > next to each instruction, and writing a quick lex/yacc grammar > to translate infix to postfix. (I also tried my hand at a > two-dimensional rootfinder in Postscript, but that was a bit > too much). > > RPN simply does not come naturally to me. Yes, writing code in PostScript is very different from more conventional programming. IME it helps to have a solid background in functional programming, but even with that PostScript needs a new way of thinking, and it takes some time to develop the skills to do so. At least it did for me.