> <SNIP> > > Over the last few years programs have become larger and larger, > > partially because programmers have stopped worrying so much > about CPU > > and/or adding additional functionality, but more likely > some combination > > thereof. Writing better programs (IMO) means writing the > program that > > is less CPU/memory intensive _and_ at the same time being > more secure. > > Why should we have to give up one for the other? I believe we can do > > them both. > </SNIP> > While I agree partially, we cannot forget the evolution of programming > languages as a catylist for ignoring CPU & memory. As > languages become > more abstract there are fewer tools for manipulating memory > directly. One > of the main selling points of high-level languages is the > fact that you DO > NOT have to worry about manually handling garbage collection or memory > manipulation. > Also, it is MUCH cheaper to upgrade the hardware that a > program is running > on, then to invest thousands of man-hours into making the program more > efficient. Hardware tends to advance (in terms of power & speed) > relatively quickly, as compared to software. > > I do not mean to say that program efficiency should not be addressed, > because performance is *always* an issue. But the point of these > higher-level languages is that programmers can focus on architecture, > security, and other things... rather than having to spend > time maximizing > the speed of a particular method. Here I must digress and cite the example of Java. While it is certainly the hll - and probably the one you are most thinking of - it is also the language with the worst performance. While throwing more hardware (memory/cpu) at it will speed it up and perhaps make the speed differences between it and C or C++ less noticible, the difference will still be there. And I for one don't think we should pay such a penalty for security. Instead, I think that programmers should do it right in the best language - that is one that provides the best speed/performance and functionality - for the scenerio and then do it right so as there is no need to incur costs like that of using Java. Just another $0.02, BRM
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 23 2003 - 11:30:25 PST