Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!torrie From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Peter, can you explain to the Amigoids (was: NeXT software size Message-ID: <1991May9.173914.6203@neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 9 May 91 17:39:14 GMT References: <11905@uwm.edu> <1991May8.013155.14300@neon.Stanford.EDU> <3394.tnews@templar.actrix.gen.nz> Sender: torrie@neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Lines: 29 jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) writes: >Quoted from <1991May8.013155.14300@neon.Stanford.EDU> by torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie): >> Summary: You can't make a prediction of dynamic execution time by >> looking at a static attribute like program size. > You _can_ estimate though, particularly if the programs have the > same functionality, and if you've seen this heuristic succeed a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is the key point. If they have the same functionality, yet one has 4x code of the other, you can reasonably predict that the more massive code will run your jobs more slowly than the smaller code. However, there's yet to be any discussion as to whether the two programs compared have the same functionality. (And judging by Improv, it would be hard to compare it with any spreadsheet on any other platform in terms of functionality). -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu Murphy's Law of Intelism: Just when you thought Intel had done everything possible to pervert the course of computer architecture, they bring out the 860