> It would really be nice if the field of compiler engineering started to address the obvious neglected areas, like optimizing memory layout
Interesting tidbit: LLVM was developed by Chris Lattner for his PhD thesis. It was titled "Macroscopic Data Structure Analysis and Optimization" and about "Instead of analyzing individual load/store operations or structure definitions, this approach identifies, analyzes, and transforms entire memory structures as a unit", in his own words. Apparently, the world was more interested in a good compiler framework than specific memory layout optimization proposed.
Interesting tidbit: LLVM was developed by Chris Lattner for his PhD thesis. It was titled "Macroscopic Data Structure Analysis and Optimization" and about "Instead of analyzing individual load/store operations or structure definitions, this approach identifies, analyzes, and transforms entire memory structures as a unit", in his own words. Apparently, the world was more interested in a good compiler framework than specific memory layout optimization proposed.
http://llvm.org/pubs/2005-05-04-LattnerPHDThesis.html