It is quite possible to beat established (array) implementations with special cases and bittwiddling.
I just finished adding another mid-end to my Apple JIT compiler, motivated to get rank facilities right. However, there remain significant shortfalls.
My Apple compiler started as an experiment in what I would implement as compiler for an array system. Several parts did not pan out so I offer my warnings and advice to other array language implementers.
Functions are compiled to machine by a convention of jumps and
registers; one calls a function by jumping to its
location in memory. These jumps are relative and particular functions (say,
malloc) may be loaded at different memory locations, so the machine code for
a function cannot be pinned down and in fact is contingent on every function
that it calls.
Building a respectable compiler requires basic blocks in order for liveness analysis to be performant. Consider my own Apple compiler:
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