>>105,107Suppose: the raw stream is in memory, the CPU clock rate is in the low/mid tens of MHz with memory clocked to match, memory is not byte-addressable, the cache is write-through and there are two three other processors talking to RAM. Demux will still be pretty quick in isolation, by using something like 4-8x as much memory bandwidth.
Contrived statistically insignificant examples much?
The lack of byte addressability in particular means a C compiler will have to go to great lengths to avoid generating horrible code. I have done work on crappy architectures like the ones you describe and, frankly, having to check the compiler's code generation all the time becomes such a chore you may as well just rewrite your code in assembly once you know its performance is going to be a problem. This is especially true if you plan on ever changing your compiler (it's not fun, seeing your code miss half its deadlines because somebody had to change a compiler flag).
The point was Pike didn't make it in the spirit of kindness. He granted exception to exactly one class of person, one he finds himself in. He pulls this shit all the time. When people didn't flock to Go in big enough droves, he complained that the hangers-on were stupid/ignorant/whatever.
If you want to say Rob Pike is a bit of a self-important whiner we are in complete agreement. He pulled the same crap when Plan 9 didn't catch on in industry (see: Utah2k, where he spends half of his presentation insinuating that people who still do real work developing for Unix systems are fools).
>>106Precisely. And in cases where the compiler isn't smart enough, tweaking the source isn't always the best answer.