Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 23:01:59 +0200 (EET) From: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> To: J McKitrick <jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: assembly vs C Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.1000509225240.5152E-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee> In-Reply-To: <20000509212637.A73322@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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On Tue, 9 May 2000, J McKitrick wrote: > I've heard some debates recently, mostly by 'old-school' hackers from the > C64 days who are calling for a return to machine language. They claim that > CPU speed, memory size, and HD space will begin to plateau soon, and that ML > would bring a much needed return to efficiency and clean coding. > If 30 years min is soon, then yes. Everybody expects the Moore\s law to hold out at least that long. And even then (and definately, up to then), most benefits would imho come from algorithmic improvements. Inc. ones that are way more cache friendly. > The other side of the coin argues differently. I can think of 2 arguments > against: first, OOP and C++ were developed almost expressly to make it > easier to deal with the size of today's apps. Modularity only goes so far, > they claim. Objects are needed to further simplify development and > maintenance. The other point is illustrated by Unix itself. ML was > abandoned for C, since compilers are advanced enough in time and space > optimization to make hand-coding unnecessary, even obsolete for everything > but device drivers. > Take a look at freebsd device drivers and compare the amount of asm vs. C 8-) > What does everyone think about this? Will there ever be a need for ML > again, besides optimized device drivers? Or will advanced compilers and OOP > replace low level programming for most tasks? Even though C is not OOP, it > is low-level enough that a good compiler and a tight C program make the > benefits of ML almost irrelevant, correct? > Considering that a lot of the new language-X compilers compile to C chieveing comaprable speeds to average C programmers in most cases, it also applies to any language x. ML will be less and less needed/used as time goes. You also haven't considered things like probable wide spread of SMT processors, java and things like Transmeta's Crusoe. > jm > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > Jonathon McKitrick -- jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org > I am a bomb technician. If you see me running, try to keep up. > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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