On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 03:41:42PM -0800, Hong Zhang wrote:
> Are we over-optimizing? The Perl is just an interpreter language.
> Who really needs this kind of optimization for Perl? Even C does
> not provide this feature.
Umm, art thou sure? C can optimize better then we currently do many times,
because it doesn't have to worry about side-efects as often because it
doesn't have the concept of ties/overriden operators. (It does, and we do,
have to worry about aliasing, but that is somthing of a smaller problem.)
Just because C doesn't memonize, doesn't mean we shouldn't have that
optimization available to us. So many other optimizations that are doable
in C aren't in perl.
> Though Pascal/Ada have distinctions
> like function/procedure, it does not make them any faster than C.
Umm, I don't know Ada, but in Pascal, the only difference is that one
returns a value and the other does not (IE like void vs. nonvoid functions
in C, or sub vs. function in VB).
> Just given its ugly name, I hate to see it in the core language.
> If people really want to optimize Perl, they can write a native
> compiler for Perl with advanced garbage collector, just like
> Scheme or Strongtalk compiler?
We want to make it as fast as reasonably possible. Writing a native
compiler might not be _reasonably_ possible. And an advanced GC will almost
certianly be part of perl6; they're orthogonal issues.
-=- James Mastros
--
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapt in awe, is as good as dead.
-=- Albert Einstein
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