On Monday, February 22, 2010 at 14:42:57 (+0000) Andrew Ross writes:
 > 3) Talking of efficiency, I worry that this introduces a large additional 
 > level of complexity for a rather specialist set of cases where odd data 
 > storage methods are used. I am slightly relieved by David's comments, 
 > but I would like to have a thorough comparison of the time difference.
 > This should include a "large data" case as well where timings might be
 > more important. The lena image might be one suitable case. The test 
 > should also multi-language tests to see if not copying large amounts
 > of data around is quicker than having lots of callbacks.

I see this issue as mostly about program clarity & programmer convenience.
Nothing wrong with a test, but I'll restate (and elaborate upon) my previous
prediction that efficiency is mostly a moot point.  Of course those with
scientific programming backgrounds will tend to see function calls associated
with a single data point as somewhat evil, and they'd be right -- in the high
performance arena of say, the central processing loops of a multidimensional
simulation.  But that's not the situation here.  Aside from the oddball case
of plotting into a memory buffer, at the end of the call chain some i/o will
be performed.  That should dwarf the function call overhead.

-- 
Maurice LeBrun

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