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Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 19:54:57 +0200
From: cpghost <cpghost@cordula.ws>
To: Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl>
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Cc: James Jeffery <cascadingstylez@googlemail.com>,
	freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: C++ Compiler On FreeBSD
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On Sun, 7 Oct 2007 17:08:30 +0200
Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> wrote:

> My preference for doing things is;
> 
> 1) Can it be done with a shell-script? (esp. one-time hacks)
> 2) Else use Perl, Octave, Ruby, but
> 3) If speed is key, use C. :-)

Yup, exactly. In Python, that's what extension modules in C and C++
are for (ditto for Perl, Ruby, ...). You gain raw speed for CPU
bottlenecks, though that's just a nice side effect. More importantly,
you can tap into existing C/C++ libraries by wrapping their interfaces
into nice extension modules. And if you're too lazy do do the wrapping
against Python, Ruby, Perl... APIs yourself, just use something like
SWIG. It works like a charm. :)

Anyway, having a working knowledge of C and C++ is always a very good
idea! Go for it! It'll pay off, whatever your main programming language.

-cpghost.

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