🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Zorn wrote:
> 
> In <4kbfn8$1bu@news1.is.net> mvantassel@teambca.com (Mark VanTassel) writes:
> 
> >"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.

> >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)
>    True, the Fibonacci and factorial are not good candidates for a
> recursive algorithm.  (They're just taught that way because it's one
> of the few recursive problems that we can understand in first-year
> college courses.)
>    On the other hand, almost any interesting program, compiled & run
> in different languages, should be able to give a good idea of how the
> languages compare.  For my part, I'd also like to look at the source
> code, and know how long it took to write (and debug) the two programs.
>    So, Alan, I guess you'll have to come up with a program for
> Ackermann's Function in C++ and Smalltalk to satisfy the rest of us.
> 
> Mike Zorn      ozma@kaiwan.com   |  Thought for the day:
>   http://www.kaiwan.com/~ozma/   |    Java is C--

I did those benchmars to prove that Smalltalk message sends are faster
than c function calls.  To do that, I needed a benchmark that consisted
mostly of function calls/message sends--and involved as little other
code as possible.  The recursive factorial and fibonacci functions
meet those requirements better than anything else I could think of.

To do any better, you'd need a completely synthetic benchmark.

--alan