Comment by fithisux
5 days ago
What I get in these article is that the original intent on C language stands true.
Use C as a common platform denominator without crazy optimizations (like tcc). If you need performance, specialize, C gives you the tools to call assembly (or use compiler some intrinsic or even inline assembly).
Complex compiler doing crazy optimizations, in my opinion, is not worth it.
> Complex compiler doing crazy optimizations, in my opinion, is not worth it.
For these optimisations that are in the back-end, they are used for other languages that can be higher-level or that cannot drop to assembler as easily. C is just one of the front-ends of modern compiler suites.
Well, C is a lie anyway: it's not how computers work any more (and I'm not sure it's how they ever worked).
Assembly isnt how they work under the hood, but its the highest fidelity interface we have. C as "portable assembler" is targeting the surface that chip designers give us and the one that they try to make fast via all their microcode tricks.