Comment by com2kid

> How does this go with the often quoted mantra that you can only beat compilers today if you're an extremely skilled asm programmer? Or is the problem you describe just about executable size rather than speed?

Word 2000, so a 17+ year old compiler. Compilers have gotten a lot better since then.

Having worked on a compiler team back in the mid 2000s, even then I'd say it was easy for almost anyone to spot areas where a human could optimize more.

Now days, much less so.