Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sci34hub!sci!dc
From: dc@sci.UUCP (D. C. Sessions)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: EXE file size, C vs. Pascal
Summary: Linker, not language
Keywords: C, Pascal, MsDos
Message-ID: <846@mgt3.sci.UUCP>
Date: 13 Nov 90 15:28:26 GMT
References: <16398@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: dc@mgt3.sci.com (D. C. Sessions)
Organization: SCI Technology, Inc., Huntsville, Al.
Lines: 29

In article <16398@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> nuspljj@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Joseph J. Nuspl Jr.) writes:
>
>Over the past year, I have written several Unix-like commands -- cat, ls, ...
>in Turbo Pascal 5.5.  I have recently rewritten them in Turbo C++ hoping
>to improve speed and/or reduce file size.  The C compiled programs are
>significanly larger.  Cat in Pascal is ~3k, Turbo C ~17, DeSmet C ~10.
>
>BTW - I don't have time to code every thing in Assembler.
>
>Comments?

Try writing a null program in each language.  I think you'll find that it's
not so much a function of language as of implementation.

Currently, TP v5.5 has one of the better linkage editors around; it
eliminates dead code fairly efficiently.  (BTW: so does at least one 
Modula-2 system -- in fact, mine is better than TP.)

For filters and the like, speed is going to be a function of I/O buffering
anyway, and again this is implementation- rather than language-bound.

The moral?  Use the language that suits you, and forget about 'efficiency'.
It's a moving target.

-- 
| The above opinions may not be original, but they are mine and mine alone. |
|            "While it may not be for you to complete the task,             |
|                 neither are you free to refrain from it."                 |
+-=-=-    (I wish this _was_ original!)        D. C. Sessions          -=-=-+