Re^3: perl's long term place in bioinformatics?

I actually prefer C++, since I know it and it's as fast as C when you use it as C, and sometimes faster when you understand its compilation model. But the extension APIs for both R and Perl (and many other languages) are written in C, not C++, and C is a much simpler language.

Comment on Re^3: perl's long term place in bioinformatics?

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Re^4: perl's long term place in bioinformatics? by tritan (Sexton) on Jan 13, 2010 at 05:11 UTC
So does learning C, or C++, help you learn the other? And what would be the advantage of knowing the same language as what the extension APIs are in? My knowledge level is such that I just looked up what API is, though I've seen it plenty but just never really knew what it was.	[reply]
Re^5: perl's long term place in bioinformatics? by educated_foo (Vicar) on Jan 13, 2010 at 05:36 UTC
So does learning C, or C++, help you learn the other? Yes -- C++ is mostly a superset of C, so learning either helps you learn the other. And what would be the advantage of knowing the same language as what the extension APIs are in? The idea is that you first write your program in a comfortable, high-level, slow language (e.g. R or Perl) and then, if it's too slow, reimplement parts of it in a fast language, calling those parts from the high-level language.	[reply]
Re^6: perl's long term place in bioinformatics? by tritan (Sexton) on Jan 13, 2010 at 06:07 UTC
Mmm, okay. Makes sense. Thank you very much for your replies! They've been very helpful.	[reply]


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