3 ms·

I don't know if that counts... I can read the 1s and 0s of a compiled binary in any language. Does that mean nothing a C compiler does is an optimization? I wo

I don't know if that counts... I can read the 1s and 0s of a compiled binary in any language. Does that mean nothing a C compiler does is an optimization? I wouldn't consider the memory layout of something like a stack to be part of the semantics of the language, unless that language actually includes features to directly refer to the stack (get its contents or size, etc).

chrisseaton 6y ago
> I can read the 1s and 0s of a compiled binary in any language But the 1s and 0s are not specified by the language (in almost all cases.) They're out of scope.
- ragnese 6y ago
  But where is the line? Is the stack size specific by any languages? Many language's compilers will eliminate variable assignments as an optimization. Since I can view a stack trace in some of those languages, then would that make that not an optimization? Like, if I just inserted `let x = 3;` in the middle of my function, but never used `x`, it would disappear from the compiled code. If I look at the stack trace, I wont see my `x` variable. Is that an optimization or a semantic language feature? Does it matter?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > But where is the line? The line is: what has been formally specified by the language spec as being part of the language.