Re: [Caml-list] Caml productivity.

[Travis Bemann <bemann@execpc.com>]

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On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 10:46:35AM -0700, Pal-Kristian Engstad wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Nicolas Cannasse seems to believe that "productivity"
> and "performance" are orthogonal concepts. They are
> not always. For some tasks the performance of the
> algorithm determins if the program can be put into the
> application. Hence, if the program executes too
> slowly, the program is useless and the time spent on
> it was a waste. In other words, there was no
> productivity at all.
> 
> I commend Nicolas for trying to use O'Caml in a games
> setting. We, however, can not afford this - instead
> the company designed and implemented a specific
> language in order to be able to optimize _and_ be
> productive. This language has high-level constructs as
> well as low-level constructs --- and they can be
> freely mixed.

Actually, speed-wise natively compiled OCaml (on at least x86; I
haven't seen benches for other architectures) is slightly faster than
C++ compiled by gcc 3.0, and slightly slower than C compiled by gcc
3.0.  OCaml does have an excellent C binding facility, which makes it
easy to interface between OCaml and C code (so therefore one can use C
for extremely speed-critical code while writing most other code in
OCaml).  Thus, I see little advantage to writing a whole new natively
compiled language (which would require writing a whole new code
generation and optimization layer, which would be extremely
time-intensive, unless such a language were "compiled to C" as things
such as GCL (GNU Common Lisp) do) rather than simply using OCaml with
speed-critical or otherwise extremely low-level code in C.

-- 
Yes, I know my enemies.
They're the teachers who tell me to fight me.
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance,
hypocrisy, brutality, the elite.
All of which are American dreams.

              - Rage Against The Machine

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