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Re: [GCC 3.0] Bad regression, binary size
- To: espie at quatramaran dot ens dot fr, gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
- Subject: Re: [GCC 3.0] Bad regression, binary size
- From: dewar at gnat dot com
- Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:17:54 -0400 (EDT)
<<Err... New compilers are supposed to be BETTER than old ones. Ideally, there
should be no regression at all ! What's the damn point of -Os if successive
releases of the compiler keep getting out larger and larger code ?
>>
A requirement that -Os not increase code size for any possible program is
clearly unreasonable. It may well be that some particular *size* optimization
helps nearly all programs, but not that particular one.
Or, as discussed in the thread on alignment, a change in ABI conventions
may cause code size increases that are justified in terms of general
performance improvement (obviously -Os should not affect the ABI).
<<In fact, as I stated already, this seems to be a weird linker/compiler
interaction, which I'm going to try to figure out.
>>
Well of course anytime we see some anomolous behavior like this, we should
try to understand it, and if in fact the behavior can be improved, then we
should indeed fix it. No one argues with that.
The issue is with calling this a "serious regression", that's obviously
inappropriate.