. Re: cross-stack globals, also, file inclusion

[Richard Gaskin]

Martin Baxter wrote:

> The major difference I don't think anybody has mentioned is that since the
> value of a constant is known at compile time, it can be inserted directly
> into the resulting object code. So the value has only to be looked up once
> - at compile time - whereas a variable always has to be re-evaluated at
> runtime. A variable that's got from an accessor would seem to be even more
> work because a handler has to be run to determine which variable to look up.

True, and for the extremely rare case where one is making a lot of
references to a constant I suppose the extra time for the lookup might even
become noticeable.   But if I'm not mistaken the time differerence for
calling an accessor is very, very small (fraction of a millisecond?), so in
most usages wwould have no material detriment.

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
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