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

["Tjoff Tjonk" <tjoff@tjonk.now>]

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 16:59:39 +0000, Kevin Lawton wrote:

> White Flame (aka David Holz) <whiteflame52@y.a.h.o.o.com> wrote:
> | "Kevin Lawton" <kepla@btinternet.com> wrote in message
> | news:bcplc6$b5e$4@titan.btinternet.com...
> || Cobol programmers respectively. The result is that the end-user, the
> || consumer, has to provide much bigger, faster and expensive hardware
> || at their own cost. The software might be cheaper to produce (though
> || looking at Micro$oft's prices you'd hardly think so !) but any
> || advantage gained is paid for dearly with the hardware required to
> || run it.
> |
> | ??? You can get new, complete, multi-GHz systems for only a couple of
> | hundred dollars nowadays.  So while the requirements do go up,
> | hardware costs are continually plummetting.
> 
> The 2 GHz system I built a few months ago cost about 600 pounds = 900
> dollars. Given that 200 dollars = 130 pounds, we'd be lucky to get much
> better than a used Pentium-II for that. Maybe a used sub-GHz Penium-III for
> a little bit more.

So, you think that spending 1800 pounds on a developer's salary in order
to get a 1% speed-up is a better way to spend you money?

> | 2)  Are you as proficient in what speed-conscious decisions must be
> | made in Java to keep it fast as you are with keeping C code fast?
> 
> Maybe, maybe not. I've done the Sun Java certification course which only
> made slight mention of performance issues. If there are any techniques you'd
> like to point out which can make a 10-fold or even 100-fold difference, then
> I'd be interested to know. I wouldn't have thought the term 'keep it fast'
> was as appropriate to Java as maybe 'prevent it running terribly slowly'.

You usually need quite a lot more experience that a simple "certification
course" to be able to comment on performance issues.