[llvm-dev] TBAA

[Richard Kenner via llvm-dev]

> I would think that in a language like C, the role of the optimizer
> should be to do optimizations that are difficult or impossible or
> time consuming for the programmer.

That's a philosphical question.  Keep in mind that very few
programmers nowadays, even in C, have a good idea of the underlying
machine model (or even the fact that there *is* such a model), so they
don't really even know what to do.  Also, think of macro expansion and
such.  And maintenance costs over time if you add all of the
"clutter".  I would argue against that view.

> My concern is that TBAA has a trade-off in terms of the complexity of the
> language for the programmer

I don't understand.  TBAA implements the rules of the programming language
with respect to aliasing.  It doesn't change the language in any way, so 
I don't see how it can increase the complexity for the programmer.

Perhaps you're arguing that anti-aliasing rules in languages aren't
worth the complexity, but that's a different issue and one that language
design groups look at, not compiler writers.