[kbenson]

I've occasionally wondered how long it takes highly optimized C/C++ to be surpassed by optimizing compilers due to CPU advancement and the optimizations either making compiler optimization harder, or the optimizations target assumptions about CPU architecture that are no longer valid.

That is, what is the shelf life of a very low level CPU optimization for Intel hardware.

[daemin]

Well while strictly not on topic, there was this talk recently on micro-optimisations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXaxk27zwlk

[kbenson]

While it seemed to cover more of the compiler optimizations and how to do some low level benchmarking and optimizing and wasn't really addressing when those might become obsolete, it was really interesting and informative. Thanks!

[matt_d]

There's been an interesting talk on this a few months ago:

- http://blog.cr.yp.to/20150314-optimizing.html

- (PDF) http://cr.yp.to/talks/2015.04.16/slides-djb-20150416-a4.pdf

Discussions:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202858

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9396950