[Oberon] Why is RSC string data word-aligned?

[Colby Russell]

On 1/30/21 7:19 PM, Chris Burrows wrote:
 > Sure - I got that. However, the whole object file is read in when the 
module
 > is loaded. Hence, the module loader is only slowed down by 1% because of
 > those extra nulls. Even on my 25 MHz RISC5 system hardware, module 
loading
 > appears to be instantaneous so any gain would not be noticeable [...]

Chris, I understand what you're saying, but it's besides the point.

It's not as if we're discussing code that's written in a "natural", 
naive way
and I'm proposing a slightly more complicated strategy for the benefit of a
micro-optimization.  It's rather very much the opposite.

The code as written is _complicated_ at the moment by an attempt at
optimization by aligning to a word boundary--or at least that's my best 
guess
for the reason that this strategy was chosen, and the gut feeling that
everyone has responded with so far has agreed with this.  What I'm 
discussing
is *removing* the complication so that it uses a more "naive" strategy, 
and as
a result actually ends up being _more_ efficient.  I.e., nothing that I can
see at this point nor any of the things brought up in response to my 
question
are able to validate that this optimization pays for itself.  As I wrote
already, it's actually making things worse by any measure offered up 
'til now.

-- 
Colby Russell