Zig: replace @setCold() with @cold()

[andrewrk]

Status quo:

@setCold(is_cold: bool) void

Tells the optimizer that a function is rarely called.

Proposal:

@cold() void

Annotates that it is relatively uncommon for control flow to reach this point. Similar to unreachable, but only communicates probability. It communicates a willingness to compromise performance of the cold path in order to improve performance of the hot path.

This makes #489 unnecessary. Instead of:

if (@expect(foo, true)) {
   bar();
} else {
   baz();
}

With this proposal:

if (foo) {
    bar();
} else {
    @cold();
    baz();
}

[SpexGuy]

How does this work with comptime-known coldness? The old approach would have been:

fn foo() void {
    @setCold(comptime_foo_is_cold);
}

But with the new approach:

fn foo() void {
    if (comptime_foo_is_cold) {
        @cold(); // doesn't work, applies to the if body.
    }
    // function implementation
}

[SpexGuy]

I guess this might work, since technically there's no scope:

fn foo() void {
    if (comptime_foo_is_cold) @cold();
    // function implementation
}

[andrewrk]

That later example would still apply to the then-body of the if statement, communicating that comptime_foo_is_cold is unlikely. Which if the value is comptime-known is meaningless and ignored since the compiler knows precisely whether the branch is taken.

This proposal removes the ability to specify comptime-known coldness. I would be happy to reconsider if there is a convincing enough use case for comptime-known coldness.

[fengb]

ZeeAlloc has manual size tuning using @setCold: https://github.com/fengb/zee_alloc/commit/b11ee8ee6747e292b375b2eae6df97dd2c866dbd#diff-d2841187941f93280c97ecaafd02aeb4R292

[andrewrk]

Thanks for the example. OK I'll amend the proposal to have @cold accept a comptime argument, same as @setCold. So the proposal is now essentially:

• rename @setCold to @cold
• make it apply per-branch-scope rather than per-function-scope

[EleanorNB]

There's a solution over at #5239 -- simple configuration is concise (@{cold};), and doesn't look deceptively like a function call; also, comptime configuration is always possible, but not so easy that it encourages users to go insane with it.