[vorbis] RC3: I'm impressed

[Craig Dickson]

Hongl Lai wrote:

> On Tue, 2002-01-15 at 00:33, Craig Dickson wrote:
> > Joel wrote:
> > 
> > > What about translating some critical functions to hand optimized
> > > assembly.
> > 
> > Goodbye, portability. Hello, 5% speed increase. Probably not a good idea.
> > 
> 
> #ifdef x86
>   insert asm code here
> #endif /* x86 */
> 
> Hello, portability. Welcome, speed increase.

Hello, maintenance nightmare. You oversimplified it and left out the
worst part.

#ifdef x86
   insert asm code here
#else
   insert C code here
#endif

In other words, you now have two separate implementations (or more, if
you also provide PPC assembly or whatever) that have to behave exactly
the same even though they're written quite differently. Bad, bad, bad.

Craig

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: part
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 233 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/vorbis/attachments/20020115/278e60bd/part-0001.pgp