Re: Scripting

[Mads Bondo Dydensborg <madsdyd@challenge.dk>]

On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Steve Baker wrote:

[hotspot]

> I think this is a ridiculous claim - and if it were remotely likely to be
> true then that's how C++ compilers would work.  You'd compile the program
> offline - optimise it the best you possibly could with static knowledge of
> the nature of the program - then keep a copy of the code and re-optimise
> it based on this nebulous "additional information" that somehow becomes
> available.

There used to be a dicipline called "specializing". I believe it is still 
around.

Say that you could specialize your C++ program every time you loaded a 
level. That could probably buy you something, if done right. 

But, then again, before your were done writing the code to do it, the next 
generation of CPU's would probably be out.

> 
> But again - like garbage collection - this is a dubious thing for games
> and other 'hard realtime' applications.  There you are, with carefully
> written code that's managing to make it around your render loop in 16ms,
> then the stoopid interpreter says "Woah! You've been around that loop
> more than 1000 times - I'd better optimise it!"...it then goes away for (say)
> 50ms to beat the heck out of the code - and you just dropped three frames!

Several realtime garbage collectors exists. I do not know if they are any 
good though.

Mads

-- 
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               madsdyd@challenge.dk
Perhaps only a monopolist like Microsoft could get away with selling worse 
products each generation -- products focused so narrowly on the least-
technical member of the consumer base that they necessarily sacrifice technical
excellence.
                                     - www.os2hq.com