Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen <ole-hjalmar.kristensen@substitute_employer_here.com>]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> writes:

> Well, there's *always* exceptional cases and we could sit here all day
> long dreaming up applications in which math errors matter or math
> errors don't. We could also find lots of apps in which speed
> matters. The key factor being that for most of the software that gets
> built in the world (look at what's on your desktop for appropriate
> examples) and for most of the processors on which they execute (again,
> look at the computer on your desk for an appropriate example) the
> relative efficiency of most compilers/languages is incredibly
> unimportant. The word processor I'm using to type this could have been
> built in interpretive Basic functioning at 10x the number of CPU
> cycles as an equivalent program in some compiled language and I'd
> probably never see any difference from my keyboard.
> 
> So rather than talk about language/compiler efficiency its probably
> more productive for most apps to discuss what *else* a
> language/compiler offers the developer. (Things like
> safety/reliability, ease of understanding, developmental leverage,
> available tools & libraries, etc.)
> 
> MDC

Actually, I'm not exactly dreaming up such cases, since I spent the
last two years developing software for seismic visualization. Speed
matters very much, in that if you can double your speed, you can
handle a survey twice the size at the same machine.
The trick is to know where you need to be accurate and where not to be.
And yes, that particular application ran on a desktop PC.

But my mind is probably bent from too many years of programming
graphics and soft real time data bases.

I'm not arguing against discussing what else a language/compiler
offers, just pointing out that for some applications, the need for
speed is very real.

> 
> Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen wrote:
> > It could well be. In the case of an interactive raytracer, minor
> > numerical errors does not really matter if you can get the results at
> > twice the speed. I imagine you can find other applications with
> > similar characteristics.  But in general, I agree that for the
> > majority of applications the difference in speed between languages and
> > compilers is nothing to worry about.
> > <snip>
> >
> 
> 
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> Marin David Condic
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