So maybe you can optimize C after all

[Martin Minow]

In a posting a few months ago, I noted that the Draft Ansi C Standard
was very restrictive as to how C may be optimized.  It precluded
common sub-expression recognition, for example.

The latest draft of the standard, received late last week, had a
paragraph that explained that the standard described an "abstract
machine" in which processing takes place so fast as to render
optimizations irrelevant.  It than suggests that a compiler for
a real machine must give the same results as one for the abstract
machine.  If I understand this correctly -- and, please note that
I am quoting from memory -- it would seem to indicate that C
compilers can optimize the code and still conform to the Standard.

Please accept my apologies for any confusion I may have caused.

Martin Minow
decvax!minow