On Sunday, 12 May 2013 at 18:00:10 UTC, Diggory wrote:
On Sunday, 12 May 2013 at 17:31:22 UTC, SundayMorningRunner
wrote:
Hello, let's say I have the choice between using an abstract
class or an interface to declare a "plan", a "template" for
the descendants.
From the dmd compiler point of view, should I use the abstract
class version (so I guess that for each method call, there
will be a few MOV, in order to extract the relative address
from the vmt before a CALL) or the interface version (are the
CALL directly performed in this case). Are interface faster ?
(to get the address used by the CALL).
Thx.
I would expect abstract classes to be slightly faster
(certainly they shouldn't be slower), but the difference to be
insignificant compared to other factors.
Deriving from an abstract base class is a much stronger
relationship than implementing an interface, so it depends on
your situation. If your class is a "provider" (eg. it provides
some functionality such as being able to receive some event)
then an interface makes more sense. If your class is a type of
something (eg. a button is a type of gui control) then
inheritance makes more sense.
It's ok about the difference between an interface and an abstract
class. My question is really technical: which is the fatest:
to a method from an interface or to the overriden
method of an abstract class ? Think about a context such as audio
DSP, where a method will be called for each buffer during 2 or 3
hours without interuption, and maybe 3 or 4 times per second...
