Retirement hobby (was Re: 80286 protected mode)

Tim Rentsch wrote:

Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> writes:
 [C vs assembly]
 

For near-light-speed code I used to write it first in C, optimize
that, then I would translate it into (inline) asm and re-optimize
based on having the full cpu architecture available, before in the
final stage I would use the asm experience to tweak the C just
enough to let the compiler generate machine code quite close
(90+%) to my best asm, while still being portable to any cpu with
more or less the same capabilities.
>
One example:  When I won an international competition to write the
fastest Pentomino solver (capable of finding all 2339/1010/368/2
solutions of the 6x10/5x12/4x15/3x20 layouts), I also included the
portable C version.
>
My asm submission was twice as fast as anyone else, while the C
version was still fast enough that a couple of years later I got a
prize in the mail:  Someone in France had submitted my C code,
with my name & address, to a similar competition there and it was
still faster than anyone else. :-)

 I hope you will consider writing a book, "Writing Fast Code" (or
something along those lines).  The core of the book could be, oh,
let's say between 8 and 12 case studies, starting with a problem
statement and tracing through the process that you followed, or
would follow, with stops along the way showing the code at each
of the different stages.
 If you do write such I book I guarantee I will want to buy one.
 

Thank you Tim!
Probably not a book but I would consider writing a series of blog posts similar to that, now that I am about to retire: My wife and I will both go on "permanent vacation" starting a week before Christmas. :-)
I already know that this will give me more time to work on digital mapping projects (ref my https://mapant.no/ Norwegian topo map generated from ~50 TB of LiDAR), but if there's an interest in optimization I might do that as well.
BTW, I am also open to doing some consulting work, if the problems are interesting enough. :-)
Regards,
Terje
--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"