Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!utrcu1!kortink
From: kortink@utrcu1.UUCP (Kortink John)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Language war take#?
Message-ID: <814@utrcu1.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 91 19:25:05 GMT
Reply-To: kortink@utrcu1.UUCP (Kortink John)
Organization: Utwente, Enschede
Lines: 43

A final few words on the language-war.

Everybody who is fanatic about a single language (most people seem to like C),
i.e. uses it exclusively, is certain to be blinded by this fanatism. Looking
at the messages that appear on the subject, it seems to me that although every
fanatic programmer (whatever language) *knows* that there are speed/space
gains in writing in machinecode, somehow they just cannot seem to accept this
as a fact of life.

I hope I'm being more objective in accepting that, for example, writing in C
has many advantages over writing in assembler. I'm not an 'everything in ARM
code' fanatic for that matter (well, close). I have programmed in C, Pascal,
Algol 68, Simula, Prolog, APL, BASIC, Smalltalk, LISP, etc.. All have its
virtues.

But once a piece of code is written in efficient machinecode, and enough
thought has been been put in the algorithms to use, it will *always* tie and
999 times out of a 1000 beat the C equivalent for speed and size. This simply
cannot be argued, as C (or any other language) itself produces/executes in
machinecode. Given plenty of time, then if your C beats your machinecode,
your machinecode skills are less than perfect, and you're probably right in
using C !

Also, there are *no* compilers that have the intelligence to say to you that
you are using a bad algorithm, and change it for you. If there were any, there
would probably be no need for programmers. Compilers can only optimize the code
they generate *themselves* to execute your program's semantics.

"The smallest/fastest code will always be machinecode"

*After* recognizing this, choose any other language if you like its advantages.
And, if you can, stop worrying that you can do better in machinecode. It may
not be relevant, other things may be.

John Kortink

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Student of Informatics at the University of Twente, The Netherlands
MAIL : kortink@utrcu1.uucp
DISCLAIMER : you know ....             "It's a one time thing
                                        It just happens
           Suzanne Vega ('Cracking')    a lot"
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