Compiler: Size of generated executable file

[bearophile]

Chris:
> Execution speed perhaps, since the time elapsed is proportional to the
> number of processor instruction executed. This explains why some people
> (for certain time critical apps) do not even take the step from C to C++,
> and chose to stay 20 year behind "modern" languages.

In real programs what takes time are (beside I/O and cache issues that are another form of I/O) often small amounts of code, usually loops inside loops. Removing a single instruction inside them can reduce the running time by K%, while removing a megabyte of code elsewhere may just reduce a little the loading time, etc.


> D presented itself being a high level language suitable for system
> programming, so executable sizes must be taken into consideration, imho.

I don't think we'll see miracles soon, but D2 is currently in alpha state still. Once it's in beta some care will be probably given to optimizations too, and among them there is the executable size too. Even if most people don't need such optimization, it's clearly psychologically required by C/C++ programmers. Eventually it's even possible to add a compilation flag to D compilers to not use the GC, avoiding that overhead on C-like programs (such flag must also turn some operations into compilation errors, like array join, etc, to avoid leaks). Currently Link Time Optimization of LLVM (that can be used by LDC) removes some unused code from D1 programs.

Bye,
bearophile