3 ms·

I love how the ambiguity has caused BOTH compiler teams to comment on what they're optimizing.

• WalterBright 8y ago
  Amusing anecdote - back in 1982, I took a 2 week compiler course from Hennessy and Ullman at Stanford. I decided to implement the data flow analysis techniques in my C compiler. It appeared as Datalight Optimum C. The benchmarks used by the computer magazines were all dead code, and so the flow analysis deleted them. The journalists sadly concluded and wrote that DC was an utterly broken compiler :-( This problem persisted until a year or two later when Borland and Microsoft caught up. They had much better marketing teams (!). The benchmarks got changed.
  • oblio 8y ago
    Well, at least today you'd be able to start a Twitter war and with a few strategically placed Reddit and HN posts you'd shame them into fixing their benchmarks :)
    • WalterBright 8y ago
      In those days, what could you do? Write a strongly worded letter to the editor? Have the magazine print a retraction two months later for their feature article? Not going to happen.