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How often does branchless programming actually matter? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by firelizzard@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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I've started noticing articles and YouTube videos touting the benefits of branchless programming, making it sound like this is a hot new technique (or maybe a hot old technique) that everyone should be using. But it seems like it's only really applicable to data processing applications (as opposed to general programming) and there are very few times in my career where I've needed to use, much less optimize, data processing code. And when I do, I use someone else's library.

How often does branchless programming actually matter in the day to day life of an average developer?

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[–] tatterdemalion@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you haven't profiled your code and noticed that branch misprediction is a problem, then it doesn't matter.

[–] philm@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah especially if it isn't done on the GPU (where branch optimization certainly makes more sense). branch prediction in CPUs is pretty smart these days.