Assembly or ....

[Barry Margolin]

In article <1989 at crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> orr at cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Fraser Orr) writes:
>I think that there would be great improvements if compilers were interactive.
...
>Interactive isn't necessarily the best by the way, since it means
>you have to repeat yourself, and the decisions are not documented
>in the program.

How about if the compiler saved the answers in the program text as
explicit ADVICE statements?  The compiler becomes a simple form of
Programmer's Apprentice, helping the programmer determine where
potential optimizations can be specified.  The decisions become
documented, and they don't have to be repeated.

Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar at think.com
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