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From: BGB-Alt <bohannonindustriesllc@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C23 thoughts and opinions
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2024 16:58:08 -0500
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On 6/6/2024 7:53 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Jun 2024 15:38:21 -0500, BGB-Alt wrote:
> 
>> *2: Seemingly the main way I am aware of to get small binaries is to use
>> an older version of MSVC (such as 6.0 to 9.0), as the binary-bloat
>> started to get much more obvious around Visual Studio 2010, but is less
>> of an issue with VS2005 or VS2008.
> 
> Newer version of proprietary compiler generates worse code than older
> version?!?

Or, at least, bulkier code...

It terms of other factors, it is pros/cons:
   Supports C features newer than C89/C95;
   Is clever enough to generate sensible inline code for "memcpy()"
   ...

These older versions tended either to always emit a function call, or on 
the latter end, turn it into "REP MOVSB" or similar, etc.

I think code generation went in the bulky direction when they started 
adding auto-vectorization, and not really any option to be like "Yes, I 
want SIMD instructions enabled, but, no, don't autovectorize."

Sometimes vectorization makes things faster, sometimes not, but one 
thing it does do, is make the generated binaries bigger.

Comparably, GCC seems to be a little more behaved in this areas, at 
least as far as it doesn't add bulk (but, does have the annoyance of 
defaulting to strict aliasing semantics, and also sometimes generating 
code that will break if one uses misaligned pointers, etc).


Newer versions of MSVC tend to be more clever about things like 
"memcpy()", albeit not to the same level as GCC (which can entirely 
optimize it away, rather than turning it into memory loads and stores).

Also, "-Os" in GCC is pretty good about disabling any optimizations 
which would add bulk, ...

So, it is pros/cons.

....