[Python-Dev] PEP 203 Augmented Assignment

[Vladimir Marangozov]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> > In fact, why not do that for one-argument opcodes as well?
> > If what you say is true, that should make argument decoding 
> > even faster than it is now!
> 
> Yes -- but also would cause about 30-40 copies of the same code (which
> could be a single macro call).  This could easily be tested and timed
> though.
> 

Yes, and we won't be able to conclude anything. This is micro-optimization
which doesn't give meaningful results. Actually, when I played last time
with the main loop (it was for 1.5.2 I believe) duplicating the second
argfetch doesn't give any speedup. Mainly because the code for
the 2nd byte fetch is already in the processor's cache. Consequently,
testing and fetching the 2nd argbyte (or skipping it) is faster when
it's done before the big switch. If it's done per opcode, the cache may
be invalidated.

Micro-optimization doesn't worth the effort. As to the 2-byte arg limit,
I think I'd be happy if the compiler raises an exception if this limit
is exceeded.

unrelated-with-PEP-203'ly y's
-- 
       Vladimir MARANGOZOV          | Vladimir.Marangozov@inrialpes.fr
http://sirac.inrialpes.fr/~marangoz | tel:(+33-4)76615277 fax:76615252