Faster compilation speed

[Nick Ing-Simmons]

Jamie Lokier <egcs@tantalophile.demon.co.uk> writes:
>David S. Miller wrote:
>>       You can easily use much less than a full word.  Foundation on 
>>    OpenStep/Mach 4.2 started storing partial ref counts in whatever spare 
>>    bits were available in each object.
>> 
>> We don't have any spare bits, we have 32 bits used for RTX state then
>> the next object is a pointer.  So whatever size counter we use will
>> eat at a minimum a word's worth of space to get the pointers aligned
>> up properly.
>
>Did I see "pointers" and "aligned" there?
>
>You have 2 spare bits per pointer, man, open your eyes! :-)

Note the :-)  Given the amount of 
pointer use having to mask every pointer to clear out "spare bits" 
would be a disaster.

-- 
Nick Ing-Simmons
http://www.ni-s.u-net.com/