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Re: comments on Eiffel vs. Objective-C?

On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 21:10:25 +1200, brucehoult@pobox.com (Bruce Hoult)
wrote:

>In article <39031b73.74375185@news2.one.net>, suk@pobox.com wrote:
>
>> Speed is simply no longer a universal factor in favoring static over
>> dynamic typing.  This is an outdated myth.  It is true only in
>> specific cases (image processing).  It is not often true in developing
>> business client-server apps.  In this case, you are often better off
>> using the dynamically typed language, but also profiling and writing
>> custom primitives or modules in C or Fortran.  This gives one the best
>> of both worlds -- high level, elegant description of your problem
>> domain and close to the metal speed.  
>
>Alternatively, you can write using a dynamic, no (or few) declarations,
>style in Dylan, profile the code, and incrementally insert declarations in
>the hot spots, once again getting "close to the metal speed", but without
>having to use more than one language and without having to write anything
>twice.

You can do something similar in Squeak.  (Implement primitives using a
Smalltalk subset -> C translator)  This approach of "Get it correct,
get it clean, then get it fast" is clearly the right way to go.  At
user's group meetings, I always ask "who here has used a profiler?"
Of course, almost everyone raises their hand.  Then I ask "Who has
never been surprised by the results?"  They all go down.  

This is usually enough to quiet the bit-bender types who insist on
writing everything to squeeze the last cycle from the get-go.  


--
Peter Kwangjun Suk
Cincom Systems, Inc.
suk@pobox.com  http://ostudio.swiki.net 
(comp.lang.java.advocacy killfile poster-child -- Scene, not Herd!)
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