ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Loop unrolling

Loop unrolling is a way to make a computer program run faster. Imagine you are playing a game that involves counting repeatedly from 1 to 10. If you were asked to count to 10 many many times, it could take a lot of time and effort, and it might even get boring. But what if somebody told you to count to 10, then count to 10 again, and then count to 10 a third time? It might sound a little silly, but it would actually save time and effort because you wouldn't have to keep starting over at 1 every time.

That's kind of like what loop unrolling does. When a computer program needs to do a task many many times, it often uses a loop to repeat the same set of instructions over and over again. But loops can be slow and inefficient, especially if the task is simple and the loop is small. With loop unrolling, instead of repeating the same instructions over and over again in a loop, the computer runs through the instructions multiple times in a row, saving time by not having to repeat the "setup" of the loop every time.

For example, let's say you have a loop that adds together the first 10 numbers (1+2+3+...+10) and prints out the answer. Normally, the loop would go through each number one at a time, adding them up as it goes. But with loop unrolling, the computer might add together the first 5 numbers, then the next 5 numbers, and then add those two results together at the end. This saves time because it only has to go through the "setup" of the loop once instead of 10 times.

Overall, loop unrolling is just a way to make computer programs run faster by avoiding the overhead of repeating the same instructions in a loop over and over again.