D-Man wrote:
On Thu, Mar 29, 2001 at 01:43:37PM -0500, Shawn Garbett wrote:
| Maintenance issues aside, if you want an "empirical" study comparing
| perl to python, as well as C/C++ and Java, check the following link:
| http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/cgi-bin/psview?document=/ira/2000/5
| It's the only article I've seen like it.
Same here. It was in IEEE Computer magazine a few months back.
( For those who don't want to read it, the conclusion is (basically)
that programmer skill is more significant for the quality/performance
of a product than the language used. Also, scripting languages
(python, perl, tcl, rexx) require less LOC than traditional languages
(C, C++, java) (at least for most apps). )
Actually the article had some other points as well. Since scripting
languages required less lines of code, there were fewer bugs and under
stress they performed better. However, a scripting languages best
performance compared to the compiled languages best performance, the
compiled lanaguages came out way ahead.
The differences between python, perl and java as far as programmer
productivity, and run-time performance were within the margin of error
in the study. What intriqued me was the very wide skew of performance
time's under C++.
Since the average coder produces x/LOC per hour and each LOC has a
certain statistical chance of having an error-- one could conclude that
scripting languages will get you a less buggy product faster and cheaper
(in programmer's salary), but will not give best run-time performace. So
if performance is what you want, prepare for a longer development time,
longer debugging time, etc and use a compiled language.
This study of course neglected maintenance. I'd love to see a study on this.
So take all the industry jargon and throw it in a bucket. The discussion
of which language is better is really just a bunch of personal
preference, like Mike said earlier.
Coding discipline will develop maintainable code in just about any
language, including Forth (although it noted special merit on the
writting unmaintainable code site).
Shawn Garbett
