Re: inline (Was: Bloat)

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> The biggest problem with doing global optimization is structural: in
> Unix the compiler is expected to behave a certain way with respect to
> object files, and object files have a fixed format and well known
> semantics.

Not all that much so.  For example, if you were to turn .o files into a
serialization of gcc's internal "tree" structure (I'm handwaving
tremendously here, I know), the disruption for almost all uses of .o
files would probably be no greater than the disruption caused by
switching from a.out to ELF.

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