WordCount performance

[Georg Wrede]

Walter Bright wrote:
> I did a little checking.
> 
> D's and DMC's isspace(c) checks to see if the input character c is 
> ascii. gcc's does not. So there's a little slowdown there, buying 
> robustness.
> 
> What the real difference is, however, is that D's and DMC's getchar() is 
> synchronized for multiple threads. This means that there's a lock/unlock 
> going on for *every* single character read.
> 
> gcc may not synchronize stdin for multiple threads, or may have found a 
> way to avoid the locking if the start-new-thread function in the library 
> is never called.

Hmm. What kind of situations would need multiple threads simultaneously 
reading from stdin? And if there aren't any, wouldn't locking be like 
wearing a life vest on land?

And isspace, is that really the right place to check for ascii?