bitfields considered harmful?

[Chris Torek]

In article <6047 at asterix.UUCP> jimp at asterix.UUCP (Jim Patterson) writes:
>many [machines] have instructions that implement bitfields directly.

And on many of these, the special instructions are *slower* than the
equivalent sequence of and/or/shifts....

That is why we leave the instruction choice to the compiler, and merely
include bitfields as a convenience to the programmer.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris