🚀 go-pugleaf

Jan Steinman wrote:
> 
> In article <316971B0.FEF@amd.com>, "Paul G. Schaaf, Jr."
> <paul.schaaf@amd.com> wrote:
> 
> > ...I would also argue that most of the remaining things in
> > Smalltalk are not "significantly slower" than c/c++...
> 
> Then there's floating-point. I guess Paul is covered because he said "most." :-)
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the biggest ST fans around, but I wouldn't
> suggest it for serious number-crunching, unless you're doing infinite
> precision math, in which case it does okay -- not fabulous, but not bad.
> 
> Smalltalk's strength is productivity -- its run-time is usually "fast
> enough." Don't use a hammer to drive screws!
> 
> For example, I'll bet I can CODE AND CALCULATE pi to n places faster in
> Smalltalk than the time it would take to simply COMPILE the C program!
> 
> Ready, set, go (standard disclaimer, typed in off the top of my head):
> 
> | pi n |
> pi := 0.
> n := "number of hex digits of precision desired"
> 1 to: n do: [:i | pi := pi +
>   ((1 / (16 raisedTo: i) *
>     ((4 / ((8 * i) + 1)) +
>     (2 / ((8 * i) + 4)) +
>     (1 / ((8 * i) + 5)) +
>     (1 / ((8 * i) + 6))))].
> pi
> 
> Okay, has your C compiler finished yet? :-)

Hi Jan,

Your standard disclaimer notwithstanding, it would be a more impressive 
example if it actually worked. Where does the missing right paren go?

Cheers,
Bob

> 
>  : Jan Steinman <mailto:Jan@Bytesmiths.com>
>  : Bytesmiths, the Smalltalk specialists <http://www.bytesmiths.com>
>  : 2002 Parkside Court, West Linn, OR 97068 USA +1 503 657 7703