"optimize for instruction count" makes sense in a universe where a megabyte is a huge (and hugely expensive) amount of RAM. Especially on a machine with virtual memory* and poor page swapping algorithms. A program that exceeded it's available RAM by even a few bytes could take a horrible hit in performance due to disk swapping. A less than speed optimal program may well outperform a speed optimized program if stays resident in RAM.
*) Virtual memory in it's original sense, not today's definition which is mostly just memory management.
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Date: 2009-12-20 09:59 pm (UTC)"optimize for instruction count" makes sense in a universe where a megabyte is a huge (and hugely expensive) amount of RAM. Especially on a machine with virtual memory* and poor page swapping algorithms. A program that exceeded it's available RAM by even a few bytes could take a horrible hit in performance due to disk swapping. A less than speed optimal program may well outperform a speed optimized program if stays resident in RAM.
*) Virtual memory in it's original sense, not today's definition which is mostly just memory management.