
The Surprising Subtleties of Zeroing a Register (2012) - qznc
https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-surprising-subtleties-of-zeroing-a-register/
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Stratoscope
Hey! A word for my friends who are interested in machine architecture, but
like me, aren't already experts in the topic.

I'd command-clicked this article to read it later, got busy with other stuff,
then ran across the tab again. Found it so compelling that I wrote dang - well
past midnight! - to see if it could get boosted back to the home page. Turns
out this had been done once already, but he gave it _another_ shot thanks to
my suggestion.

So don't make me a liar, go read this article if the topic is at all
interesting to you. It takes a simple little case - zeroing a register - maybe
the most fundamental "spike solution" there is [1] - and traces a few ways to
do it and how different processors interpret them.

I learned quite a lot in the ten minutes it took to read this.

If my advice is wrong, you know where to find the downvote button. ;-)

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=spike+solution](https://www.google.com/search?q=spike+solution)

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gus_massa
Somewhat related: "Why do Windows functions all begin with a pointless MOV
EDI, EDI instruction?"
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110921-00/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110921-00/?p=9583)

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drdeca
The comments on the post linked seem to be good, in addition to the post
linked.

I didn't really understand all of it, which is why I said seem to be, instead
of are.

What I did understand was interesting though.

