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=1.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 10a146,a03ae7f4e53958e1 X-Google-Attributes: gid10a146,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,a03ae7f4e53958e1 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,8775b19e3c68a5dc X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,a03ae7f4e53958e1 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,a03ae7f4e53958e1 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 1094ba,a03ae7f4e53958e1 X-Google-Attributes: gid1094ba,public X-Google-Thread: fa0ae,a03ae7f4e53958e1 X-Google-Attributes: gidfa0ae,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,a03ae7f4e53958e1 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: Dean Roddey Subject: Re: Which language pays most? Smalltalk, not C++ nor Java. Date: 1998/01/03 Message-ID: <34AF183F.ABE61660@charmedquark.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 312588307 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <199712121931.LAA25389@sirius.infonex.com> <01bd171b$444880c0$8a0af880@fido312.UIC.EDU> <34AD2228.ADFB60DB@its.cl> <34AEB339.4448B20@charmedquark.com> <68mfgo$883@topdog.cs.umbc.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Charmed Quark Software Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: droddey@charmedquark.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.ada,comp.edu Date: 1998-01-03T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Jacqueline U. Robertson wrote: > In article <34AEB339.4448B20@charmedquark.com>, > Dean Roddey wrote: > >performance is kind of a limiting factor. Even with a language like C++, which very much lives towards the speed side of > >the speed/abstraction continuum, we see that our code has performance issues. Some of us just don't feel like we can > >afford to move any further along that continuum right now. > > > > Just curious - what kind of apps are you doing where the 'speed penalty' > of Smalltalk or Java would make C++ necessary ? For UI driven apps, > both are more than fast enough, as user actions are the driving factor. > If a dbms is on the back end, then the speed of the queries will limit > you regardless of language. > For me personally, its things like ray tracing and fractals. However, just for the record, I kind of find that argument less valid these days. If you have a GUI application, and that's all you are doing and its just basically responding to events with pretty trivial actions, then basically you can get the same performance pretty much until the CPU starts hitting 100% utililization during peaks. That leaves a lot of room for a language (and its libraries) to eat up CPU cycles without making a noticeable difference in performance in that kind of 'one user driven app' situation. But these days a lot more tends to be going on. I tend to have network stuff going on in the background, compiles going on in the background, image generation, etc... In such a situation, the argument above falls down because that 'slop area' is no longer free. In that kind of situation, even 10% more CPU utilization driving the GUI (or other non-problem domain grunt work that does not directly contribute to the job at hand) takes valuable time from other things going on. The more CPU constrained the workstation, the more that this is true. In a workstation that's doing industrial control, heavy graphics, video, etc... using the most efficient language possible can make a difference. All of those extra cycles, though never really grotesque in any one operation, begin to add up. -------------------------- Dean Roddey The CIDLib Class Libraries Charmed Quark Software droddey@charmedquark.com http://www.charmedquark.com "Software engineers are, in many ways, similar to normal people"