[bluGill]

llvm is not known as the best optimizer though. (but benchmarks tend to lie and llvm is always pretty close). There are also subtle areas where the front end can generate code that the backend cannot optimizer as well (though given equal effort I'd expect this advantage to go to newer languages that are design for modern optimizers - but effort is not equal with C++ getting for more love)

[steveklabnik]

Yes, my point is mostly informative; we get benefits from using their optimizer, and all the time and resources others pour in, so it's not solely about what the Rust team does. Your point about front-end optimizations is true though; we generally try to copy what clang does, but there's stuff we can do better as well. And also implementing some of our own front-end optimizations.