🚀 go-pugleaf

Paul G. Schaaf, Jr. wrote:
> 
> Mark VanTassel wrote:
> >
> > "Alan L. Lovejoy" <alovejoy@concentric.net> wrote:
> >
> > >Bzzzt!  Not according to the benchmarks I've done.  Go benchmark the
> > >factorial or fibonacci functions (implemented recursively) in both C and a
> > >good Smalltalk.  You are in for a big surprise.
> >
> > You're not seriously suggesting that a fibonacci series be programmed
> > recursively, are you???
> 
>    Read again what he said.  He is suggesting an experiment to test the speed
> of recursion; not declaring viable implementation for Fibonacci.  But perhaps
> you are correct in attempting to make this explicit for other readers:  DO
> NOT USE RECURSION TO IMPLEMENT FIBONNACCI for anything other than
> experimental purposes.
> 
> > Have you looked at the number of operations involved in calculating, say, the 1000th term as vs a standard looping 
approach?
> 
>    That's exactly why he was using this as an example.  It is easy to program,
> contains many iterations, and illustrates his point:  recursion is very fast
> in Smalltalk.
> 
> > I don't think this is a valid benchmark... (and I too fail to see how
> > Smalltalk can be faster than C++ except perhaps in bizarre special
> > cases)
> >
> > - /\/\ark \/anTassel (mvantassel@teambca.com)
> 
>    Try his experiment and you will see a set of problems for which the speed of
> Smalltalk compares to that of c/c++.  You may dismiss this set of problems as
> "bizarre", but as the size of that set increases, so does its importance.
> 
>   Many (note that I am not saying all) c/c++ programmers claim that "Smalltalk
> is slow," and therefore dismiss it.  This is wrong for two reasons:
>       1. If speed were the only measure of value we'd all
>          be programming in Assembler (or tuning c compiler-
>          generated Assembler).
>       2. Smalltalk is much faster than many people think.
> 
> The fact is that Smalltalk can do a few things faster than c/c++, and some
> things as fast.  I would also argue that most of the remaining things in
> Smalltalk are not "significantly slower" than c/c++.  This point is debatable
> as it depends upon the requirement of your domain.
> 
> It would be nice if we all had the resources to evaluate each of these
> languages fairly.  Smalltalk is shortchanged if the programmer writes only
> c/c++-style code, just as c++ is shortchanged if the programmer writes only
> c-style code.
> 

Isn't it about time you changed the subject of this thread?

-- 
Robert Stewart		| My opinions are usually my own.
Datalytics, Inc.	| stew@datalytics.com