Computers and calculating pi: A zillion-bit word?

[groman]

@Bytegeist

You’d see the opposite happen: the variable i could be optimized away (it does nothing!), but not the function call. In fact, it would be illegal for the compiler to drop it in this case. The function “fork” might have side effects, for all it knows. You couldn’t drop it without changing the meaning of the program.

Of course you’re right about “i”. However, I was making a small joke at the expense of metacomputation theories, and referring to a supercompiling optimizer.

The joke being that a supercompiler that would (incorrectly) convert

while(1) { fork(); }

into

while(1) { }

could be fooled by an addition of arithmetic that did nothing.

looks up at all the glares

Fine, fine, I’ll go back to my cave.