I don't necessarily disagree, and I grew up with rather fast compilers on rather fast interactive systems; they may even have been Wirth-style, but I didn't stu

I don't necessarily disagree, and I grew up with rather fast compilers on rather fast interactive systems; they may even have been Wirth-style, but I didn't study the source. It's just that it's not a useful metric for, say, numerical code that doesn't look like a compiler. Also I suspect the difference in hardware architecture in those days was relevant.