On Mon, 2006-12-04 at 12:15 -0800, Dave Dyer wrote: > Guys, keep your eyes on the prize. If your only problem > is that you need to double your speed, all you have to do > is wait 1.5 years. > > All this talk of optimizing speed by tweaking language xx to be > more like assembly language (or C) is almost completely a waste > of time. > > Likewise, algoritmic optimizations that are not order of magnitude > improvements (factors of 10 or 100) are not worth persuing.
I agree with most of this - if you're not programming in C or assembly you shouldn't be looking for minor improvements if it impacts the clarity of the code. Even if you program in C you shouldn't unless speed really matters. Presumably, you wouldn't be programming in C period unless speed did matter to you. But as a chess programmer, I disagree with your statement about orders of magnitude. If your chess program is 30% faster than mine, all else being equal, you have a measurably stronger chess program and you will probably win even a fairly short match. In a highly competitive chess tournament where many programs have a realistic chance of winning, a 30 or 40 percent difference is to die for. If your program has an annoying 0.75 second delay, even getting this down a little is a big deal. Even if I were a Java programmer, I would go for as little as a 2 to 1 speed increase even if it uglied up my code a little. But I wouldn't obsess over 20 percent and I wouldn't reorganize the code for that. - Don > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
