Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!tut!tukki!sakkinen From: sakkinen@tukki.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel Subject: Re: Mosaic Benchmark on other platforms Message-ID: <4083@tukki.jyu.fi> Date: 10 Apr 90 05:15:59 GMT References: <2110@kiwi.mpr.ca> <276@eiffel.UUCP> <54007@microsoft.UUCP> Reply-To: sakkinen@jytko.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen) Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland Lines: 39 In article <54007@microsoft.UUCP> jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) writes: >In article kim@helios.enea.se (Kim Wald`n) writes: >> >>The only reason to turn off all assertion checking when running benchmarks >>against C++ should be to get more comparable figures. >> >>As we all know, there is no such thing as a thoroughly tested software >>system, and the resulting safety is well worth the extra cpy cycles. > >I believe there is a contradiction in these two statements. Timing comparisons >should be representative of final executable code as delivered to customers. >If Eiffel code is to be delivered with assertions in the code, and C++ >code is not [typically] delivered with assertions in the code, then the >relative timings between the languages should reflect this fact. I disagree, i.e. agree with the original poster. See below. > ... >Alternately, show size and timings for code both with and without >assertion checking. Then users can decide if they agree with your >assessment that runtime checking is worth the cost. Yes, _this_ is a sensible suggestion. >Don't "cook" comparisons to make them unrepresentative of how people >actually use languages. Comparisons should be representative. No, comparisons should above all be as comparable as possible, i.e. no apples and oranges. Of course, the less similar languages one has, the harder it is to design a meaningful and fair comparison. Eiffel vs. C++ is a lot easier than Prolog vs. RPG. Markku Sakkinen Department of Computer Science University of Jyvaskyla (a's with umlauts) Seminaarinkatu 15 SF-40100 Jyvaskyla (umlauts again) Finland SAKKINEN@FINJYU.bitnet (alternative network address)