Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!microsoft!jimad From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel Subject: Re: Mosaic Benchmark on other platforms Message-ID: <54060@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 12 Apr 90 19:00:51 GMT References: <2110@kiwi.mpr.ca> <276@eiffel.UUCP> <54007@microsoft.UUCP> <4083@tukki.jyu.fi> Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 31 In article <4083@tukki.jyu.fi> sakkinen@jytko.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen) writes: >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. I don't consider it apples and oranges to compare two languages as they are actually used. To compare "apples to apples" is one to gin up a hashed dispatcher in C++ to slow it down enough to compare to Smalltalk dispatching? This makes C++ more like Smalltalk -- does that make the comparison more fair? Should one add bounds checking on C++ arrays to make it more comparable to some Pascal compilers? When comparing Pascal code to C code does one write the C code using a Pascal-like coding style? -- If you keep playing these kinds of games to try to make languages look more and more similar, then you end up with two identical sets of features -- only the syntax is different. Then you are not comparing the languages nor the compilers, but only the two back-end code generators. Which seems pretty silly -- especially if you're attempting to compare two languages/compilers both using the same C compiler as the back-end code generator! Surprise: Given two half reasonable front-ends both implementing the same exact set of features, you get exactly the same code out the C back-end compiler. The choices made in languages: safety vs speed vs flexibility etc, are reflected in in the size and speed of the resulting code. If one believes one's language has made the right choices, then one should be willing to live by the results. I think user's of Smalltalk [rightly or wrongly] would be willing to claim their language is worth the speed hit.