I have recently found out about Clojure and am rather impressed. I am seriously considering whether Clojure is a viable language for use at work. The main stumbling block would be if performance (both speed and memory) turns out to be insufficent. I currently use C++, but I'd love to be able to leave C++ behind and use Clojure (or similar) instead.
The programs I write perform applied mathematical optimization (using mainly integer arithmetic) and often take hours (occasionally even days) to run. So even small percentage improvements in execution speed can make a significant practical difference. And large problems can use a large amount of memory - so memory efficiency is also a concern. Given these performance considerations, at first glance Clojure does not seem like a good choice. But I don't want to give up on the idea just yet. The allure of modernized lisp-style programming is really tempting. There are three key factors that still give me hope: 1. Some of the algorithms I use have the potential to be parallelized. I am hoping that as the number of cores in PCs increase, at some point Clojure's performance will beat C++'s due to Clojure's superior utilization of multiple cores. (Any ideas on how many cores are needed for this to become true?) 2. The JVM is continually being improved. Hopefully in a year or two, the performance of HotSpot will be closer to that of C++. (But maybe this is just wishful thinking.) 3. Maybe I can implement certain performance critical components in C++ via the JNI. (But I get the impression that JNI itself isn't particularly efficient. Also, the more I pull over into the C++ side, the fewer advantages to using Clojure.) If all else fails, maybe I could use Clojure as a prototyping language. Then when I get it right, I code up the actual programs in C++. But probably a lot would get lost in the translation from Clojure -> C++ so would it be worth it? I'd love to be convinced that Clojure is a viable choice, but I need to be a realist too. So what do people think? How realistic are my three "hopes"? And are there any other performance enhancing possibilities that I have not taken into account? Thanks, Mark P. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
