Re: -funsafe-loop-optimizations

[Paul Schlie <schlie at comcast dot net>]

> Kai Henningsen wrote:
> ...
> The portability you need most at that end is not source portability, it's
> programmer portability. Source portability is much more interesting in the
> general computer area than in the embedded market, and even there limited
> portability is often enough.
> 
> Hey, portability to most of Intel-Windows alone gives you a *huge* market!
> And you know very well how many people are quite content with that.
> 
> Absolute compatibility isn't exactly only academic, but it's damned close
> to it.

I don't deny that a large bulk of application SW written for the generalized
server/pc market is inherently not portable to smaller targets, often simply
due the the magnitude of memory required dictated by the application's
purpose.

However note that my concern was that the compiler itself should not make
unnecessary assumptions as to the size of the target in it's implementation;
as although I acknowledge the validity of the above statement, there are
many algorithm/protocol implementations which are inherently portable
(especially if it's utilized types are well parameterized), and should be
expected to remain so.

(It's certainly not an "academic" issue/concern, it's a very practical one.)