Standard way to supply hints to branches

[Walter Bright]

On 9/6/2024 3:21 AM, Quirin Schroll wrote:
> Early returns for unlikely-but-valid input like null pointers 
> makes sense to me.

I often write code so that the happy path is the first if. Andrei objected to 
this style :-/

> Other than that, there’s `if (...) throw ...;`, but basically 
> all optimizers recognize this as an unlikely path.

Sure, but that's only one case. Manu's functions are all nothrow.

> This is your style, and IMO it’s a bad style.

Since CPU branch prediction for forward branches assumes they are not taken, it 
seems your style is statistically less likely. (As I assume the CPU designers 
did collect statistics on this.)