From: Paris Sinclair [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> On Thu, 24 May 2001, Lee Goddard wrote:
>
> > As to doing AI in Perl - you're really much better
> > off starting in PROLOG, POP-11, or LISP (in order of
> > my personal preference), and then transferring to a
> > high-power language like C++ and (ha!) Java.
> >
> > Perl is, to my mind, for all of it's syntactic
> > openness, far too slow for any AI projects involving
> > standard techniques like Artificial Neural Networks
> > or Genetic Algorithms.
>
> Perl is only slow when you use algorithms that were intended for PROLOG,
> LISP, C/C++ or Java.
Which most AI algorithms are, when not written in logic notation.
> Correct Perl is usually just as fast. And sometimes faster... for example
> the Schwartzian Transform is faster than standard C algorithms for the
> same task, because it creates less temporary variables... certainly you
> could write the same thing in C, as perl is written in C, but it would not
> be easy and clear.
Yep: if you can do it in Perl, you can do it in C, and as the compiled C
is not interpreted, and can be better optimised, it's usually faster.
Of course, Perl is much clearer, nicer to read, and the people are much
more laid back (besides me and my triple espresso), but then how many
ground-breaking AI apps are open source?!
lee
