Also notably absent were any performance benchmarks. Two pieces of code might look very different but perform identically, while two others that look very similar could have very different performance. In any case, you should be able to work back to an achieved FLOPS number, for example, to understand quantitatively what the compiler achieved. You might have the most vectorific code in existence, but if it's a cache pig, it'll perform like a Ferrari stuck in mud.

One amusing thing I discovered is that GCC 4.8.0 will actually unroll and vectorize this simple factorial function: Just look at that output!

If only I could lay claim to such cleverness.

Oh, I got the joke. I still felt like injecting some facts.

I know your trolling, but here's the actual history behind the name.

Kids these days!

Now where's that naked, petrified Natalie Portman with the goatse link?

My employer produces a compiler tool chain for its products. Its release notes contain two major things:

1. A list of major customer visible changes.
2. A list of defects fixed

The first represents our internal development efforts. It's written in terms of the actual features, how they affect our users, and how the users ought to use them. They are not written in terms of the series of commits that made the features happen. That would just be pointless.

The second represents the defects fixed in this (and recent) releases, as pulled from the bug tracking system. If a customer filed a bug and we fixed that bug, that bug number and a brief description of the bug are in the release notes. Again, this is not tied to a commit stream that addressed the bug, but rather to defect reports that were closed by the release. Most of these defects come from external customers, but not all.

What's not in there? All the internal churn that got us from point A to point B. We distill it down to what the externally meaningful changes are.

Disclaimer: I am not on the team that produces the tool chain I described. I'm just a happy, internal customer of said tool-chain.

You know, some of us remember driving cars that didn't have airbags, antilock brakes, traction control, rear view cameras, auto felch, auto transmission, etc.

I was following you until I got to auto felch...