[12_throw_away]

This got me wondering - it's said that C is based on the lie that all computers have the same architecture as a PDP-11. (At least, I'm pretty sure I remember people saying that).

So, are there any programming languages that have updated architectural models, something that takes into account branch prediction, CPU caches, etc?

[darby_nine]

As far as I am aware, this saying is based on the reasoning behind C types rather than serious compiler considerations. In today's world such cpu-specific concerns are left to the compiler to figure out.

I'm sure you could contrive a language where this functionality is exposed, but I'm struggling to come with an example where this would be seriously beneficial across multiple platforms.

I strongly suspect that integrating editors of existing languages with tooling that informs programmers on how a given chunk of code performs with parallel execution units would be far more beneficial than inventing a language dedicated to such concerns at this time.

[naveen99]

I guess that’s what intel and amd were relying on, while nvidia let cuda programmers control the gpu cache explicitly.

[darby_nine]

I can't speak to CUDA or GPUs as I've never had a reason to use either. Perhaps we've finally left the land of the PDP.

[kaba0]

Well, C++ has the likely/unlikely attribute to somewhat prefer a branch over the other in the eye of the branch predictor, and C++, Rust and some other low-level languages do have native SIMD support (note: C doesn’t have an official one, just compiler-specific ones. So in this vein it is actually higher level than Rust or C++).

[gpderetta]

Depend what you mean by official. There are likely more compilers implementing GCC vector extensions than there are rust compilers.