Excessive optimization (was Re: what was VMS/OpenVMS written in?)

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 5:20 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
> Some optimizers will even remove NOPs!  requiring you to use the ALIGN
> keyword instead of NOPs if word boundaries are going to matter.

Ooh... never been bitten by that one, but it sounds nasty.  I haven't
done any assembly on Intel processors past the 286 (and it wasn't
mixed-mode), and the only other architectures I've worked with at that
level that care about even-address-alignment (PDP-11 and MC68K)
shouldn't hurl if some entity pulls out a 16-bit NOP, but, boy, I'd be
steamed if I had to manually align some code only to find the compiler
tried to "help me out".

Sounds like a need for a #DWIM pragma.  ;-)

-ethan