At a crossroad

[Walter Bright]

Daniel Keep wrote:
> Here's the thing: tracing JITs can theoretically BEAT C.  Why?  Because
> a tracing JIT knows more about the system the program is running on than
> a compiler ever will.  It knows which parts of the code are being hit
> the hardest.  It can even inline whole inner loops across function and
> module boundaries.

I've heard that line of reasoning for the last 15 years. Meanwhile, a 
lot of brilliant people and enormous resources have been poured into 
trying to make it happen.

It's got a very long way to go.