Very Fast: Directly Coded Lexical Analyzer

[Andrew Haley]

Kevin Handy writes:
 > Diego Novillo wrote:
 > > We are *always* interested in making GCC faster.  All you need now is a
 > > copyright assignment, the willingness to do the work (or find someone to
 > > do it for you) and the time to implement it.
 > >
 > > 200% speed gains are nice, especially if they can be replicated outside
 > > the lab.
 > >   
 > 
 > What does a 200% speedup mean?
 > 
 > If a program runs in 10 seconds, then a 200% speedup would
 > mean it runs (10 * 200/100) 20 seconds faster, thus it runs in
 > -10 seconds. Must be nice having the results before you start
 > the program.

No.  Speed is always measured in reciprocal units of time: s^-1.  
A program that runs in 10 seconds has a speed of 0.1 s^-1.  Thus, 200%
is (0.1 * 200/100) s^-1 faster, giving a speed of 0.3 s^-1.

Have I been trolled?  :-)

Andrew.