Re: -funsafe-loop-optimizations

[Paul Schlie <schlie at comcast dot net>]

> From: Robert Dewar <dewar@adacore.com>>
>> Paul Schlie wrote:
>> Well considering the fact that most of the worlds processor consumption (by
>> orders of magnitude), are based, and likely will continue to be based 16-bit
>> or less processor architectures, which not only care about 16-bit or less
>> ints and pointers, but rely on them; it should likely be considered
>> sufficiently significant to warrant concern. (although fortunately, most
>> optimizations related to overcoming inefficiencies of deeply pipelined
>> larger machines are largely irrelevant on smaller lightly pipelined
>> architectures with closely coupled memory sub-systems).
> 
> This is a little misleading, yes, most of the worlds processors are 16-bit
> or less, but if you count programs, you will find that 32-bit processors
> dominate by a huge margin. That's because the typical pattern is a million
> watches with the same (rather small and simple) program.

I agree that the numbers may be a little misleading, but merely meant to
emphasize that although <= 16-bit processors may not be that glamorous, they
are still represent the workhorses of the industry, and although may not be
appropriate to host OS's such as Unix/Linux, are significant enough, and
benefit from cross compiler support on such platforms that they should not
be disregarded as being insignificant. (and somewhat paradoxically, may
actually help GCC maintain it's target neutral architecture support, to the
benefit of all).