Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 23:35:54 -0700 From: Arun Sharma <adsharma@home.com> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Excessive assembly code ? Message-ID: <19990805233554.A1698@home.com>
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Taking a quick look at /usr/src/sys/i386:
find . -name *.s | xargs wc -l
44 ./svr4/svr4_locore.s
216 ./apm/apm_setup.s
24 ./linux/linux_locore.s
461 ./isa/apic_ipl.s
1057 ./isa/apic_vector.s
168 ./isa/icu_ipl.s
224 ./isa/icu_vector.s
387 ./isa/ipl.s
113 ./isa/vector.s
59 ./i386/bioscall.s
340 ./i386/exception.s
192 ./i386/globals.s
1000 ./i386/locore.s
319 ./i386/mpboot.s
555 ./i386/mplock.s
310 ./i386/simplelock.s
1636 ./i386/support.s
833 ./i386/swtch.s
190 ./i386/vm86bios.s
8128 total
I wonder if so much assembly code is really necessary for FreeBSD. One
argument for minimal usage of assembly code is that it is easier to code
non trivial algorithms in C.
One such example is the scheduler. Since the decision about which process
is going to run next is decided in assembly code, it is restricted to a
relatively dumb algorithm of scanning the runqs and picking one. If the
mechanism (i.e nuts and bolts of the context switch) is coded in assembly
and the policy (which process to pick next) is done in C, the code would
be much more maintainable, IMO.
How do people feel about it here ?
-Arun
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