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C is close to the interface the hardware presents you – that is, the instruction set – but far from what the hardware actually does. Caching, out-of-order exec

by comex 7y ago

C is close to the interface the hardware presents you – that is, the instruction set – but far from what the hardware actually does. Caching, out-of-order execution, branch prediction, speculation... all of those things are just as opaque to assembly as they are to C.

msla 7y ago
> C is close to the interface the hardware presents you – that is, the instruction set – but far from what the hardware actually does. C isn't even close to that anymore, now that so many processors have SIMD ISAs which C can't usefully model.