Just thinking aloud here... So functions already (typically) have a bit of prologue for setting up the stackframe, where they juggle rsp and rbp etc. I wonder i

Just thinking aloud here... So functions already (typically) have a bit of prologue for setting up the stackframe, where they juggle rsp and rbp etc. I wonder if you could change the convention for that into something that basically does RequestStackFrame(SIZE) for some known SIZE. RequestStackFrame could then either grow the stack linearly or get memory in some entirely different region depending on what is needed. Though doing such a function call for every tiny little function is a bit excessive of course, I'm thinking maybe the compiler should track for every function how much stack it will need in the worst case (usage for the function itself + max of usage for the functions it calls). Functions that use memory below some threshold just grow linearly, while those that use above it will go to the trouble of requesting memory. Now this idea assumes that function calls happen in a DAG, it breaks if functions can call themselves or each other in a cycle. But that's actually a good realization maybe. Like a recursive function should perhaps always explicitly request stack space. Security and robustness benefits! What about libraries? Ideally library functions would be annotated with how much stack space they need (as a side note I have long thought that C-headers are inadequate for specifying how a function should be called. Not annotating stack space requirements one deficiency here!). Absent such annotations, I suppose we need to go with the status quo of making some guess.