From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: *** X-Spam-Status: No, score=3.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, RATWARE_MS_HASH,RATWARE_OUTLOOK_NONAME autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9adfbb907494972e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,9adfbb907494972e X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public From: "Tim Behrendsen" Subject: Re: Ada to C/C++ translator needed Date: 1996/09/30 Message-ID: <01bbaedd$75761920$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 186236184 references: <32499FA0.4B5E@magic.fr> <52e5t5$m28@btmpjg.god.bel.alcatel.be> <52feul$os2@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> <01bbad6e$67743f20$32ee6fcf@timhome2> <52ltk5$qlf@news1.halcyon.com> <01bbae25$67c669a0$32ee6fcf@timhome2> <52o2eg$hfl@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 organization: A-SIS mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-09-30T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Richard A. O'Keefe wrote in article <52o2eg$hfl@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>... > "Tim Behrendsen" writes: > > >However, to generalize on that basis that Ada is *always* as > >efficient as C is dangerous thinking, particularly for the original > >poster's "real" application software that he wants to convert to C. > > No such generalisation has been made by anyone, except by you as > a straw man. All that has been offered is a disproof of the > *opposite* generalisation (that C is always more efficient than Ada). >From your other post: "If an expensive optimising C compiler (developed for a specific machine, with *intimate* knowledge of that machine) can't beat a free Ada compiler which runs on a wide range of machines, when given idiomatic code for a fairly straightfoward program, what would _you_ conclude?" Sounds like a generalisation to me. Considering that your performance comparisons in your original post was based on a "numerical program", this tells you *nothing* about other classes of problems. To quote you, "Have you no logic, man?" > >In fact, I can show you APL lines of code that could potentially > >beat an equivalent C program (because there are so many fundamental > >primitives are are natively implemented), but that doesn't mean > >I want to write MS/Word using APL. > > I didn't talk about something _potentially_ more efficient, > I talked about something that is *actually* more efficient. You talked about one type of problem on one machine. You obviously have never tried to create benchmark program. Performance can vary *dramatically* between different compilers with the *same* language, much less different languages! > Why doesn't Behrendsen understand the *really* important point > about my posting? Surely it was obvious that > - obtaining, installing, and using a FREE Ada compiler that can > generate very good code on a wide range of platforms, and > NOT converting the code, but continuing to maintain it in Ada > stands an excellent chance of being *CHEAPER* than > - converting Ada to C, partly by tool, partly by hand, and > then trying to maintain the result in C. Why doesn't O'Keefe understand that that the latter point would be a good point had he made it, and not posted statistically insignificant garbage to try and justify some dubious conclusion? I agree that conversion of the fellow's Ada program is probably a bad idea, but that wasn't the point. The point is that the justification you gave was worthless, and I hope any students out there don't learn that you can make any general conclusion from little trivial programs run on one particular environment. > >And BTW, it may well be *true* that Ada can be as efficient > >as C. You simply can't prove it in this manner. > > I am *sick* of Behrenden's debating tricks. > NOONE WAS *TRYING* to prove that Ada is always as efficient as C.\ > All I trying to do, and what I *succeeded* in doing, was > *DIS*proving the popular contrary belief. And I'm sick of your ranting when you're caught posting something that makes no sense. You have disproved *nothing*! All you have disproven is, for the set of all programs, there exists no program on any platform using any compiler that is faster in Ada than C. And no one that I know of has ever made that assertion. Talk about knocking down straw men! > >Show me a CAD > >system, RDBMS, heck, id Software's Quake! written in both C and > >Ada (or Scheme) using the same algorithms, and *then* tell me the > >results. > > Pay for my time, and I'll do it. My time costs A$140/hour. > Put up or shut up. It's not my assertion to prove. If you want to show that Ada can be just as efficient as C, then prove it in a non-trivial program using a mix of algorithm theory. -- Tim Behrendsen (tim@a-sis.com)