Markus Mottl wrote:
> Programs on modern architectures depend so heavily on cache behaviour that
> performance claims for code-bloating techniques seem to be rather
> suspicious. I'd also like to see substantial benchmarks that prove the
> merits...

	Code bloat can be expensive, however so can boxed values.
 
> Considering the improvements on the hardware side in terms of processor
> performance, 10% seems very insignificant to me 

	Sure it does. But you are not thinking rationally. 
You're thinking emotionally. So try this: in doing your job,
you find a 10% productivity improvement. Not much eh?
Try _over_ an extra months holiday! Are you kidding 10% isn't
significant?

> Correctness, maintainability and portability are (well, should be) the
> primary concerns in a world that changes fast - not "fast" programs...

	It is for those who commission and pay for the code to determine
what their strategic goals are. We have code written in _assembler_.
 
> If your employer says that you should switch to lower-level, unsafe
> programming languages to get 10% more performance, tell him that he
> should rather buy new hardware (if you dare to! ;-)

	My employer isn't the user of the software but the puveryor of it.

> If he doesn't want, present him an estimate of the costs of more errors...

	At present, the cost of C++ errors is much lower. That is because
the company employs a lot of expert C++ programmers. And only one,
nonexpert, ocaml programmer.

-- 
John (Max) Skaller, mailto:skaller@maxtal.com.au
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