[Luna] Vista requirements (beating a dead horse)

[JP Bonn]

Jeff Clark wrote:
> Code:
> I agree with Ryan, but would also add that your typical software 
> developer has no clue about code optimization, even if the environment 
> was made available.
> 
I wish I could disagree over "your typical software developer has no 
clue about code optimization".  Unfortunately just the other day I was 
able to improve the performance of the simulator for the chip we are 
building by a factor of 10. Our testsuites went from taking over 24 
hours to less than 2.5 hours. It wasn't a matter of compile time or 
platform optimizations but poor coding causing the bad performance. 
Unfortunately the original simulator was written by USC grad students - 
it doesn't bode well for the next generation of software.

JP