http://prog21.dadgum.com/52.html

Heh heh heh.
-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> http://prog21.dadgum.com/52.html

I know that guy, he's from the lambda-the-ultimate web forums. :)  He also
mentions magnificent Infocom implementor Brian Moriarty of Trinity's fame, so
that's 10 geek points to him.

While he does put the python version to run 1000x over the Basic version, he
doesn't acknowledge the difference between 1984 hardware and, say, a P4.  Yes,
undoubtedly any interpreted language nowadays is faster than old, line-by-line
intepreted Basic, but I guess not by the insane numbers he purports.  Put that
qbasic to run that program on the same hardware as Python and let's talk... 5
points taken. :)

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> http://prog21.dadgum.com/52.html

  It's like saying that Python is 1000 times faster than C by running the
C program in a computer made in 1980 and the Python program in a computer
made in 2009.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>The sieve in Atari BASIC, using timings from an article written in 1984 by 
>Brian Moriarty, clocks in at: 324 seconds (or just under 5 and a half 
>minutes) The Python version, running on hardware that's a generation 
>back--no i7 processor or anything like that--completes in: 3 seconds

He draws the wrong conclusions. What he says amounts to the following:

The basic code on a 1 MHz PC in 1984 (very optimitic - probably the Atari 
CPU was slower) ran 100x slower than python on a 2400 MHz single core (he 
mentions old harware).

If both languages were on par, python should execute at least 2400 times 
faster than the old code. Actually, it should execute even faster, since 
CPUs got faster per MHz, too.

The (somewhat) right conclusions would be:

- computers got faster since 1984 (surprise)
- Python is being interpreted 24x slower than ancient BASIC (at least per 
MHz)

However, all this is comparing apples to pears, like we say here in Germany. 
What's the English term?

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TC <do-not-reply@i-do get-enough-spam-already-2498.com> wrote:
> However, all this is comparing apples to pears, like we say here in Germany. 
> What's the English term?

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1525

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> TC <do-not-reply@i-do get-enough-spam-already-2498.com> wrote:
> > However, all this is comparing apples to pears, like we say here in Germany.
> > What's the English term?
>
> http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1525

nice comix BTW :D

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poor orange :-(

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On 14-11-2009 19:11, nemesis wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> http://prog21.dadgum.com/52.html
> 
> I know that guy, he's from the lambda-the-ultimate web forums. :)  He also
> mentions magnificent Infocom implementor Brian Moriarty of Trinity's fame, so
> that's 10 geek points to him.
> 
> While he does put the python version to run 1000x over the Basic version, he
> doesn't acknowledge the difference between 1984 hardware and, say, a P4.  Yes,
> undoubtedly any interpreted language nowadays is faster than old, line-by-line
> intepreted Basic, but I guess not by the insane numbers he purports.  Put that
> qbasic to run that program on the same hardware as Python and let's talk... 5
> points taken. :)
> 

He was specifically comparing it with his (ours I am afraid) experience 
with 8 bit hardware at *that* time. So you can not take points away for 
that.

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Warp wrote:
>   It's like saying that Python is 1000 times faster than C by running the
> C program in a computer made in 1980 and the Python program in a computer
> made in 2009.

The link in the first sentence takes you to where he explains what he's 
talking about in the follow-up.

"""
Life is good if you have applications or tools or games that you want to 
write. Even a language like Ruby, which tends to hang near the bottom of any 
performance-oriented benchmark, is thousands of times faster than BASICs 
that people were learning to program 8-bit home computers with in the 1980s.
"""

It's not a language shoot-out. It's saying "this is what 30 years of 
progress brings, when a "slow" language is 100,000 times as fast as a "slow" 
language from 1980."

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On 11/14/2009 6:21 PM, andrel wrote:
> He was specifically comparing it with his (ours I am afraid) experience
> with 8 bit hardware at *that* time. So you can not take points away for
> that.

Yes you can.

Mike

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