Of Bounties and Mercenaries

[Ben Elliston]

Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com> writes:

> But then, a compiler is a tool that is used by developers and
> application builders; users are second-order customers.  Sure
> enough, we want to generate code that runs as fast as possible, for
> the benefit of the users, as long as this doesn't make the compiler
> too slow for developers and builders to want to use it, otherwise
> all the effort put into generating fast code will be wasted since
> the compiler won't have any direct users.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, Proebsting's Law is an
interesting idea to ponder -- "compiler advances double computing
power every 18 years":

  http://research.microsoft.com/~toddpro/papers/law.htm

Ben