Re: Declarations and speed

[fischer.pa@Xerox.COM]

Declarations, of themselves, do not obscurity make.  Having to model their
effect on performance is painful.

What is unfathomable, both in C and Lisp, is the exact effect a given set of
declarations will have on your code.  For this you must either simulate the
compiler's heuristics in your head or (more commonly) look at the machine code.
Not a pleasant solution, but the only one todays' s/w technology offers.  We
could really use a more graceful interface to the machine that doesn't assume
ignorance.

Typically Lisp heaps more complexity on understanding performance with its
memory management, although the swift will usually recycle structure when
possible and forget it only when neccessary.

(ron)