The effect of optimizing compilers on architecture and programs
The first optimizing compiler was developed at IBM in order to prove that high level language programming could be as efficient as hand-coded machine language. Computer architecture and compiler optimization interacted through a feedback loop, from the high-level language computer architectures of the 1970s to the RISC machines of the 1980s. In the supercomputing community, the availability of effective vectorizing compilers 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 users. This fostered a feedback loop between programmers and compilers to develop high performance programs. Future optimizing compilers for high performance computers and supercomputers will have to take advantage of both feedback loops.
optimizing compilers parallel computers