Re: Low-level vs. High-level programming (was My First Computer)

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Kevin Lawton wrote:

>Kelly Hall <hall@priest.com> wrote:
>| "Matthew Russotto" <russotto@grace.speakeasy.net> wrote in message
>| QECdnXzeWrOgUm2jXTWc-w@speakeasy.net">news:QECdnXzeWrOgUm2jXTWc-w@speakeasy.net...
>|| Sure, but you have the power to burn.  If something's going to be
>|| used in a situation where it's lightly loaded or doesn't need to
>|| perform well, by all means optimize for development time.  On the
>|| other hand, if you're going to be running heavily loaded at the
>|| limits of current hardware, you're going to need to spend some
>|| development time looking at performance.
>|
>| Ahh, so the runtime nature of the task at hand has implications on
>| one's choice of programming language?  That's a much different
>| attitude than Kevin's, who seemed to imply high-level languages are
>| bad bad bad and we should all be writing our RDBMS code in assembly
>| because it's "more efficient".
>
>Nope.
>My point is that consumers (in the very widest sense) are paying for
>immensely powerfull machines which only just manage to cope with the
>application tasks put before them because of the proliferation of
>inefficient software technology.
>I am saying that it seems that many of the tasks which a typical 2 GHz PC is
>bought for could be adequately performed by a less powerfull machine were
>the software more efficient. Alternatively, more efficient software on
>current machines should show better speed and functionality then is
>currently seen. I've nothing against high-level languages - I've been using
>them for long enough. My complaint is aimed at the recent trend towards
>languages and techniques which are 'easier' and 'dumbed-down' leading to
>large inefficient programs. Java is a typical example of this trend. As a
>trade-off for being quick and easy (but not that quick or easy) to write and
>portable across platforms, java gives away efficiency to just about every
>other language I've used - except Basic, which was not created to be used
>seriously.
>
>| My attitude is, and has been for decades, have a big toolbox and use
>| the right tool for the job.  :)
>
>- and I wouldn't argue with that !

Nor would I.

I think that the fundamental problem is that hardware is getting cheaper
and labor is getting more expensive.

And against that backdrop, we must all note that "good enough is
good enough"--with the disillusioning consequence that "excellent
is too good", for most software.

-michael

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