Optimizations and performance

[Era Scarecrow via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 9 June 2016 at 17:19:36 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Thursday, 9 June 2016 at 16:14:08 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad 
> wrote:
>> C++ would destroy the competition on almost any performance 
>> benchmark implemented by a group of competent C++ programmers.
>
> How can it win over assembler? Also what's about cost/benefit 
> ratio?

  I wrote an assembler (which can compile itself) when i was a 
teenager some 20 years ago. The code is probably ugly, a bit 
confusing, and has limited functionality or use as it doesn't 
connect or link to any official tools.

  Writing in assembly can give you some blazing fast code, and do 
things with hardware that requires... well very badly written 
code to get similar effects. (overflow detection, carrying, 
larger type emulation, etc). But it's way too tedious, like using 
tweezers to build a car by putting each individual grain of metal 
in place and welding it in place, your view is so narrow you can 
easily miss the bigger picture.

  Two years writing in assembly was fun, but i certainly wouldn't 
want to do it regularly, especially with anything that needs any 
type of maintenance down the road. (talking big projects, tiny 
ones for PIC chips or specific sections of code are different).