[rer0tsaz]

If you start with the most general form you won't always get an optimal solution, because two jumps may be blocking each other from optimizing. TASM does it that way. Consider (16-bit NASM):

  a:
  times 124 nop
  jmp b
  jmp a
  times 125 nop
  b:

[drudru11]

@SloopJon - I thought the same thing when I looked at this years ago. In fact, many older books/articles mentioned.

@rer0tsaz - this is a great counter example.

Is there a general form for these types of problems and solutions?

Also, I wonder how often instruction sequences like that would occur.