On Friday, December 02, 2011 05:18:15 Patrick Stewart wrote: > Russel Winder Wrote: > | CPython is written in C but PyPy is written in RPython (*). PyPy is > | about 5 times faster than CPython on most of the performance benchmarks > | CPython has. > > CPython is the main implementation and first Python that cameo out. It is > still bleeding edge. I think that counts as a big win for C. > | Wasn't the latest Perl initially written in Haskell? > > And Haskell in C? > > Besides, any compiler capable of bootstrapping itself has to be written in > some other language at the beginning. > > It just makes me laugh when I see statement written from people using > language Y, whose implementation (or even worse - whose interpreter or VM) > is written in language X: "Y is faster than X!" or "X is crap and > outdated!". It is just a load of BS.
Really what it comes down to is that many languages are geared more towards something other than performance - e.g. programmer productivity - so they're not really performant enough to really be the best choice for a compiler. And in some cases, they just don't have the features that it takes. But they're still useful for many programming tasks and are therefore well-worth using in those circumstances. However, it's certainly short-sighted to say that language Y is better than X at performance when language X is needed in order to implement language Y. At best, language Y is generally better for many tasks due to features other than performance and therefore obsoletes language X for many tasks. But there's no way that a language that isn't performant enough to actually implement a compiler in is going to fully replace those which _are_ that performant. - Jonathan M Davis