[vm-papers-discuss] "A portable optimizing compiler for Modula-2"

[Vyacheslav Egorov]

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=502905

Marc Feeley linked me to this paper yesterday and I found it extremely
interesting.

It might not be technically relevant anymore, but it provides some
interesting historical perspective.

Taking right shortcuts as an optimization technique :-)

Quote to spark your interest:

"""
The optimizations implemented were those we expected to have the
greatest impact on well-written Modula-2 programs. Our intention was
not to make the optimizer safe for arbitrary programs, but to do a
good job of optimizing those programs that could be safely handled.
For example, in Modula-2, aliasing may be introduced by taking the
address of a local variable and storing it in a pointer. In Modula-2,
such programs must import functions and types from a module called
"system". Although the optimizer will safely handle any program that
does not import from system, it does not make worst case assumptions
for those programs that do.

A survey of the literature on optimization uncovers many techniques
that are hard to understand, harder to implement, more general than
necessary, and of marginal value.
"""

Ah, good old days when people did not care about total correctness that much :)

--
Vyacheslav Egorov