Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)]

[Mark Mielke]

On Mon, May 27, 2002 at 01:28:13AM -0400, Calin A. Culianu wrote:
> > Robert
> > ¹ There are surely small things which cannot be implemented in
> >   another way - try to write a counting loop in another way than
> >   for (i=0; i<N; i++) {printf(i);}
> void loopie(int N)
> {
> 	if (N) loopie(N-1);
> 	printf("%d ",N);
> }

" ... cannot be [sensibly] implemented in another way ... "

As somebody else pointed out, a good optimizer should be able to
unroll most types of loops / functions. With sufficient capabilities,
an optimizer should turn both of the above into the same object code
(potentially a faster executing version, or a tighter set of
instructions, than either of the above, unoptimized).

But then again... this whole thread-line is a little off-topic... we
all know it is the better lawyer who wins, not the developer who can
deduce the potential origin of a piece of code... :-)

mark

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