Coding Practices which enable the compiler/optimizer to make a faster program

Write to local variables and not output arguments! This can be a huge help for getting around aliasing slowdowns. For example, if your code looks like

void DoSomething(const Foo& foo1, const Foo* foo2, int numFoo, Foo& barOut)
{
    for (int i=0; i<numFoo, i++)
    {
         barOut.munge(foo1, foo2[i]);
    }
}

the compiler doesn't know that foo1 != barOut, and thus has to reload foo1 each time through the loop. It also can't read foo2[i] until the write to barOut is finished. You could start messing around with restricted pointers, but it's just as effective (and much clearer) to do this:

void DoSomethingFaster(const Foo& foo1, const Foo* foo2, int numFoo, Foo& barOut)
{
    Foo barTemp = barOut;
    for (int i=0; i<numFoo, i++)
    {
         barTemp.munge(foo1, foo2[i]);
    }
    barOut = barTemp;
}

It sounds silly, but the compiler can be much smarter dealing with the local variable, since it can't possibly overlap in memory with any of the arguments. This can help you avoid the dreaded load-hit-store (mentioned by Francis Boivin in this thread).

Here's a coding practice to help the compiler create fast code—any language, any platform, any compiler, any problem:

Do not use any clever tricks which force, or even encourage, the compiler to lay variables out in memory (including cache and registers) as you think best. First write a program which is correct and maintainable.

Next, profile your code.

Then, and only then, you might want to start investigating the effects of telling the compiler how to use memory. Make 1 change at a time and measure its impact.

Expect to be disappointed and to have to work very hard indeed for small performance improvements. Modern compilers for mature languages such as Fortran and C are very, very good. If you read an account of a 'trick' to get better performance out of code, bear in mind that the compiler writers have also read about it and, if it is worth doing, probably implemented it. They probably wrote what you read in the first place.

The order you traverse memory can have profound impacts on performance and compilers aren't really good at figuring that out and fixing it. You have to be conscientious of cache locality concerns when you write code if you care about performance. For example two-dimensional arrays in C are allocated in row-major format. Traversing arrays in column major format will tend to make you have more cache misses and make your program more memory bound than processor bound:

#define N 1000000;
int matrix[N][N] = { ... };

//awesomely fast
long sum = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < N; i++){
  for(int j = 0; j < N; j++){
    sum += matrix[i][j];
  }
}

//painfully slow
long sum = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < N; i++){
  for(int j = 0; j < N; j++){
    sum += matrix[j][i];
  }
}