On Sun, 29 Mar 2015 10:50 am, BartC wrote:
> (X is my own interpreted language, which is where my interest in this > is. This had been generally faster than Python until PyPy came along. It > does however use a pure byte-code interpreter, so the result is not too > bad. > > But using X *and* my own brute-force algorithm, the same puzzle took 2 > seconds to solve - faster than C! I'm not one of those people who think that C is by definition the fastest language conceivable. (People who believe this sometimes make an exception for hand-crafted assembly, which is ironic since these days the best C optimizing compilers can generate faster, tighter code than human assembly programmers.) I know that program speed depends on the implementation of the language, not necessarily the language itself. I know that Fortran can beat C for numeric work, and that with a tiny fraction of the work put into optimization that C has seen, modern languages like Scala, Eiffel, Haskell and D can get to a factor of 2-6 times as slow as C. And I know that PyPy has managed to beat C in some (quite restrictive, but not completely unrealistic) benchmarks: http://morepypy.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/pypy-faster-than-c-on-carefully-crafted.html http://morepypy.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/pypy-is-faster-than-c-again-string.html So beating C is not impossible. But, when you tell me that your very own personal interpreted language, which I assume nobody else has worked on, is 40% faster than optimized C, my first reaction is to expect that you've probably made a mistake somewhere. I would have the same reaction if somebody casually dropped into a conversation that they happened to beat Usain Bolt's 100m personal best of 9.58 seconds by almost four seconds. While carrying a 20kg backpack. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
