[gclist] Stack allocation inneficiency.

[Charles Fiterman]

Optimizing compilers make very wasteful
use of stack space with C.

        aFun(lots, of, big, parms);

Becomes in psudo assembler
        push lots
        push of
        push big
        push parms
        call aFun
        add  #size_of_parms, %SP

But if this call is before the return that add at the
end is useless as the stack will be restored from a
register not arithmetic.

In general as long as the call isn't in a loop the
add will be optimized out. So we use more stack,
we reduce instruction count and increase speed.

If the compiler is smart enough to know that aFun
wont modify those parms on the stack they can even
be used from there rather than recalculate their values.


Charles Fiterman	Geodesic Systems
Phone 312-728-7196	4745 N. Ravenswood Suite 111
Fax   312-728-6096	Chicago Il 60015
cef@geodesic.com

A computer language without garbage collection
  is like a city without garbage collection.