Re: "Documentation by paper"

[Robert Dewar <dewar at gnat dot com>]

Paolo Bonzini wrote:

> > > I assume that everyone knows what dominators and post-dominators are?
> > > What about a dominator tree?  Value numbering? SSA form?  How using
> > > value numbering on the SSA form during a dominator walk gives us
> > > redundancy elimination on an almost-global scale without the need to
> > > invalidate values from our hash tables?

Note that it is VERY dangerous to rely on everyone knowing what
you mean when you use terms like this. It is very often the case
that different authors use the same term in either very different
senses, or, more worryingly, in subtly different senses.

So it is very important to define terms here. In the case where
definitions correspond to those used by some particular standard
reference book, it is fine to refer to that book for additional
information, but the definitions should be reasonably complete.

Consider that even the definition of prime number, or natural
number, is controversial :-)