Optional Optimization

Some compilers either allow the optimizer to be turned off, or require that optimization be requested explicitly.

Reasons for turning optimization off:

• Compilation may be faster.

• If the optimizer produces errors, the errors can be avoided.

With some sophisticated compilers, the users normally turn the optimizer off! This is because the optimizer has the reputation of generating incorrect code.

Optimizations that don't take much compilation time and are guaranteed to be correct should probably be done every time. A slightly longer compilation time is almost always compensated by faster execution.