Comment The Final Word (Score 3) 454
This whole question boils down to whether or not a human mind is deterministic. We can prove that a
compiler is, or in fact that any program that runs on current computer hardware is.
If a human mind is deterministic then it follows that a human could do just as good as a compiler simply by using all of the same algorithms to generate the code, although the computer would certainly finish alot sooner.
If a human mind is NOT deterministic then it is clear that a person who had no programming skill whatsoever could beat the best compiler given enough time, a specification sheet of the language he was to generate the given algorithims in and a circit diagram of the cpu he/she was coding for.
This is VERY simple to see. A compiler can NEVER
under any conditions for any reason EVER EVER EVER produce better code than a human because the
human can ALWAYS produce the same code that the compiler did. The question should be is it reasonable to wait the 150 years of time it would take me to compile mozzila by hand or should I build a compiler to do it in a few hours. The next question would be how much time(if any) should I spend hand optimizing the compiler output.
A question I have is why cant we do the same thing that a JIT compiler does before runtime? It seems
clear that you could easily get very close to as much optimization from a multi pass profiling compiler as you ever could with a JIT without the runtime overhead.
Later
Spacewalrus
compiler is, or in fact that any program that runs on current computer hardware is.
If a human mind is deterministic then it follows that a human could do just as good as a compiler simply by using all of the same algorithms to generate the code, although the computer would certainly finish alot sooner.
If a human mind is NOT deterministic then it is clear that a person who had no programming skill whatsoever could beat the best compiler given enough time, a specification sheet of the language he was to generate the given algorithims in and a circit diagram of the cpu he/she was coding for.
This is VERY simple to see. A compiler can NEVER
under any conditions for any reason EVER EVER EVER produce better code than a human because the
human can ALWAYS produce the same code that the compiler did. The question should be is it reasonable to wait the 150 years of time it would take me to compile mozzila by hand or should I build a compiler to do it in a few hours. The next question would be how much time(if any) should I spend hand optimizing the compiler output.
A question I have is why cant we do the same thing that a JIT compiler does before runtime? It seems
clear that you could easily get very close to as much optimization from a multi pass profiling compiler as you ever could with a JIT without the runtime overhead.
Later
Spacewalrus
