Linus Torvalds (torvalds@linux-foundation.org) on 12/20/11 wrote:
---------------------------
>Pretty much every single large immediate I ever see is
>an address that has been resolved by the linker.
>
>It sounds like you've worked with machines that simply
>cannot do them for so long that you don't even realize
>that they are immediates.
>
>So of course you never see them - you think they are data
>in a separate table, and you think they don't exist.
>
>Linus

Well that's just not true, because I've programmed a lot of x86 assembly in addition to various RISCs. I think I've done more x86 than anything else, although I've coded a lot of ARM too.

Of course, I also spend about as much time compiling for both, but admittedly I don't look at what the compilers generate nearly as much.

Now, give me real data for a decent range of real world programs.