
Programming languages don't have speeds - mnemonik
http://john.freml.in/speed-and-programming-languages
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tensor
I think many people fully understand this. When people rave about, say,
haskell being nearly as fast as C, what they _mean_ is that you can write much
higher level, and thus shorter and more concise, code in a way that can be
automatically optimized by the compiler quickly.

In other words, he's correct but also assuming incorrectly that because other
don't spell it out, they don't know.

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baguasquirrel
Oh it's more than that. Ever tried to write a trie in C? Yea I didn't think
so. C/C++ are great languages for missing the forest for the trees. I'd call
Java is faster than C/C++ for this very reason.

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pmiller2
This is one of my irrational prejudices regarding programming. It annoys me a
little when people talk about their favorite language being "as fast as C" or
"X times slower/faster than C," because such things simply aren't properties
of languages, but of particular implementations on particular architectures.
It bothers me almost as much as when people try to claim that "C/C++" is a
programming language. :P

I admit, this really just makes me sound like some old kook with a huge beard
who lives in the old programmers' home, or something, but I manage to restrain
myself from commenting about it most of the time. So, rather than listen to
me, I propose checking out the c2 wiki's page on the subject:
<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AsFastAsCee> .

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tetha
His argumentation misses an important variable: The programmers time involved.
Fix this, and fix the machine, and programming languages do have speed.

And certainly, the statement 'This problem solution in language X developed in
Time T running on machine M is faster than the problem solution developed in
language Y developed in time T, running on machine M' (often condensed into 'X
is faster than Y' is certainly possible and valid, given that the programmers
developing the program are about even in skill. (I don't want to assume the
same programmer here. Language benchmarks have been shot because someone wrote
a good C-Program and a horrible Python program and complained how slow the
python program is).

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teeja
It's a nitpicky argument; competent people understand the meaning.

Languages have _relative speeds_ on the same hardware if similar algorithms
are developed by experienced programmers. E.g. ML is hundreds of times fast
_er_ than script languages on 4MHz CPUs.

Of course when you get into 'nearly as fast' territory then all bets are off.
And skilled optimizers can usually tip the scales.

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vena
so, can those of us writing in interpreted languages still fight about this?

