THE EFFECT OF OPTIMIZING COMPILERS ON ARCHITECTURE AND PROGRAMS

The first optimizing compiler was developed at IBM in order to prove t hat high level language programming could be as efficient as hand-code d machine language. Computer architecture and compiler optimization in teracted through a feedback loop, from the high-level language compute r architectures of the 1970s to the RISC machines of the 1980s. In the supercomputing community, the availability of effective vectorizing c ompilers delivered easy-to-use performance in the 1980s to the present . These compilers were successful at least in part because they could predict poor performance spots in the program and report these to user s. This fostered a feedback loop between programmers and compilers to develop high performance programs. Future optimizing compilers for hig h performance computers and supercomputers will have to take advantage of both feedback loops.