there is hope for tiny code!

[Chuck Guzis]

On 4/13/2006 at 7:28 PM Richard wrote:

>Browse around these places and then you can't tell me there's noone left 
>who understands how to squeeze cycles out with careful thought!

Ah, but small size does not equate to fast code--or even the fastest code
for a simple task.

Take the lowly job of moving some bytes on a Pentium-class processor.
Anyone can write "rep movsb', but while very small, it's not usually the
fastest.   What's the fastest byte string move on a Z80?  (Assume a
non-overlapping move).  

Clearly, in many applications "rep movsb" will be perfectly adequate and
won't affect the performance of a program one bit.  So not every lily
should be gilded.

I'm more impressed with a cleverly fast FFT that betrays the coder's level
of understanding of the problem than an implementation that slavishly
implements the basic algorithm in the smallest number of bytes.

Cheers,
Chuck