[rescue] Re: [SunHELP] Solaris 9, First thoughts

[Dave McGuire]

On January 19, Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> To say that lisp is slow is a misunderstanding.  In reality, there is little
> reason that lisp can't be just as fast as C, if not faster.  It really just
> depends on how dedicated you are to continueing to use lisp because to wring
> the last bit of speed out, you have to do things like turn off GC and turn
> off type checking and modify the compiler to use the latest sets of multimedia
> instructions. 

  One of the most talented programmers I've ever met is a C++ guy.  He's
told me, time and time again, that there's nothing about C++ that
inherently makes a program large or slow.  Indeed, he's shown me
small, fast C++ programs.  But EVERYTHING else I've seen that's
written in C++ has been a complete dog.  Huge binaries, huge
libraries, huge memory footprint, piss-poor execution performance.
This is the norm for mainstream softare written in C++.

  The thing is, it's not C++, but how people (mostly linux kiddies it
seems) use it.  I suspect the same goes for LISP but with a very
different crowd.  From my vantage point, it seems that nearly all LISP
usage is in academia.  Except for emacs and AutoCAD, it's just not
used all that much for real programming outside of colleges...and as
such, and I stress that this is a generalization, there's typically
very little emphasis on performance in that sort of environment.

  Sure, it's possible to write code in C++ or LISP that's small and
fast.  But that's not what *really happens* about 98% of the time.

  And that sure does suck.

  For me, and many other non-object-oriented programmers who work with
mainstream free software, "object oriented" has come to mean
"nonportable", "lots of double-colons", and "slow as pissing tar."

  And that sure does suck too...for the concepts are very interesting.

  Is there any way out of this mess other than making Perl illegal
(which should be done for lots of reasons aside from this), and
tracking down and violently pummelling every Linux weenie who writes
hugely inefficient and nonportable C++ code?

       -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL         "Less talk.  More synthohol." --Lt. Worf