Re: [tlug] A semi-related question

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

On 4/24/05, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:

> >>>>> "Josh" == Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> writes:
>
>     Josh> Of course, when you do a lot of systems programming, over
>     Josh> time, you encounter a lot of the corner cases where inlining
>     Josh> something can make your subsystem an order of magnitude
>     Josh> faster, but the compiler does not realise it. *That* is when
>     Josh> you use the inline keyword.
> 
> Unfortunately, it's generally not true that the compiler can hack
> inlining stuff that's complicated enough that it can't figure out that
> function call overhead is too high. [provides grusome example]

Indeed. My statement was intended to scare off the tenderfoots
(feet?), not to tell the Hoary Hackers on this list how to use a
compiler. It was sort of a "never do this... unless you have enough
experience to realise that you *must* do this" comment. ;)

Cheers,
-Josh "Assistant Hoary-Hacker Wannabe-in-Training, Junior Level" Glover