Question on function-at-a-time and GC

[Robert Dewar]

Richard Kenner wrote:

>     Wouldn't you want to do unit-at-a-time anyway, for optimisation?
> 
> Perhaps, but I'd want the choice of not doing so, if easy.
> 
>     If all you're doing is converting Ada trees to middle-end trees, then
>     I wouldn't expect that process would generate much garbage.
> 
> Well, folding isn't cheap.

I think Richard is worrying too much here, I don't see this memory
usage issue as significant. Really the only time we have seen real
memory problems with GCC, given the large memories available today,
is when the memory usage is non-linear with the source.

P.S. People with tiny machines will just have to write tiny files :-)
Seriously, I don't think this poses any real problem in practice.