Mark Winterhalder wrote: > Nitpicking, but just as anything digital the SWF opcodes essentially > are 1s and 0s, too. :)
Fair enough. Following that to its logical conclusion, _everything_ on your computer is 1s and 0s, including the text in this email ^_^ You clearly understand what I was saying, Mark, but just a brief reiteration: compiled ActionScript has to be interpreted by the VM, which is _always_ slower than compiling directly to machine language. When I was doing Director full time, I ran some tests that showed C++ to run up to 400 times as fast as Lingo. I lobbied for years to get a true machine-language compiler for Lingo, at least for desktop apps. I was struck by how few developers understood the implications, and without other developers clamoring for the need for speed, Macromedia never went there. Director could have been a major player in the 3D game world. And don't tell me that Director 3D is "fast enough". Hard-core gamers buy $8,000 machines to squeeze every last fps out of their games. With lights, shaders, high-poly objects, multiple cameras, Director is just not fast enough for a Quake or Doom LAN party. And, of course, neither is Flash. > Anyway, the new VM supports JIT compilation to native machine code. I > must admit I don't know if /all/ code gets JIT compiled or only > hotspots, and I don't know if it will be recompiled for each use to > "hardcode" variables, but that would also have implications. One major implication would be in loops. The complier would have no way of knowing if an array would change length in a loop, for example, so it couldn't hard code the length. Cordially, Kerry Thompson _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
