There are still the odd applications for which a few CPU cycles per computation can add up to a rather significant difference, but these tend to be written in C, C++, or Fortran, not Perl
And there is a reason for that: if you need that kind of tiny optimization, you've already switched that part of the code to C or C++ or some other high-performance language weeks or months ago - those languages can easily give you a 1000% performance boost over perl with no changes in the algorithm whatsoever. Just compare the cost of a perl method call to one in C++.
But since perl integrates pretty nicely with C and C++ and is so much easier to code in, in general it's still much better to start out with pure perl, and only re-write the stuff that really does need to be fast in C/C++.
Update: that's to say that I generally agree with the OP, but I'm also working on a project that's already spending about as much on hardware as on programmers. Spending another man/month or two to decimate (literally) the hardware cost can certainly be worth it.
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.
|