From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-05-23T01:35:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Zed and Luis drop the bomb on Ruby's poor performance

On Tue, 23 May 2006 cremes.devlist@mac.com wrote:

> Not to single you out (though I guess I am) but you are the first one in the 
> thread to write-in with "it's good enough for me because of <insert reasons 
> having nothing to do with computation speed here>."
>
> I think we all know this. Most of us on this list are here because we find 
> the language expressive, clean, fast enough for whatever, yada yada yada.
>
> This thread is *specifically* about getting more computational performance 
> for Ruby. Let's not throw it off track by reiterating all the *other* reasons 
> the language is "good enough" for us.
>
>> All that said - I'll crack open a drink to Ruby's performance improving.
>
> Good! Me too!
>
>> I just want to point out why it doesn't (pragmatically) matter to me
>> personally atm.
>
> Oops! Wrong thread! :-)
>
> cr

you make good points - but let me just throw in my 2 cts:

virtual machines are stupid.  java is slow.  c++ is slow.  python is slow.
ruby is slow.  so what.  if you want fast you need c or fortan or assembler.
all three are very easy to call from ruby.  i use mmap, narray, gsl, ruby/dl,
ruby queue to cluster and other combos to process GB sized images on a routine
basis.  people are doing real-time video processing with ruby using a similar
approach.  the key to speed is c, not a vm and, if you ask me, that quest is
the white elephant - not ruby's speed.  projects like ruby2c, ruby-inline,
ruby/dl, swig - those are the way to speed.  putting a vm on top of ruby and
trying to make it fast is like chopping and dropping your mini-van and heading
to the track : you are going to get killed.  i think it's right to demand a
specfic need for speed because, if people do, i think it will become apparent
that any vm will have a hard time competing with a little thinking, a lot of
ruby, and a little c via some of the nice projects that let us it.  and, if we
stick to gcc, we also get the best portability of any code generator out
there.  lastly, this approach is here __now__ - we don't have to wait.

just my thoughts.

-a
-- 
be kind whenever possible... it is always possible.
- h.h. the 14th dali lama