From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2006-07-26T20:47:01+09:00
Subject: Re: For performance, write it in C

Robert Dober wrote:
> "Hmmm, maybe you should know that this kind of performance is not
> possible in Ruby or even slightly faster interpreted languages, and 
> that you
> should consider writing part of it in C, it is not so difficult, have 
> a look
> here or there"
>
> as opposed to those who write
>
>  "Write it in C if you want speed"
>

Tact has never been one of my strong points. Your phrasing was much 
nicer I will agree. The things that has been bugging me with this whole 
performance thing is that I am sure that many people do not realise just 
how fast a program written in C can run. The people who seem to take 
offence at being told to write their code in C seem to have no 
significant experience in using C. What also seems to happen is that 
after saying that performance is their number 1 absolute top priority 
they start to back peddle saying how hard C code is to develop. Yes is 
it harder to work with than a scripting language, it is all the rope you 
need to hang yourself with but you can write some blindingly fast code 
if you are prepared to put in the effort. Wasn't that what they said was 
their number 1 absolute top priority?