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- Path: sparky!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-lab!life.ai.mit.edu!tmb
- From: tmb@orac.idiap.ch (Thomas M. Breuel)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
- Subject: Re: Hardware Support for Numeric Algorithms
- Date: 7 Nov 92 23:34:31
- Organization: IDIAP (Institut Dalle Molle d'Intelligence Artificielle
- Perceptive)
- Lines: 29
- Message-ID: <TMB.92Nov7233431@orac.idiap.ch>
- References: <1992Oct29.153514.22927@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM>
- <1992Nov5.202412.7266@linus.mitre.org> <1de9ckINNfj7@life.ai.mit.edu>
- <1992Nov6.230030.16637@leland.Stanford.EDU>
- Reply-To: tmb@idiap.ch
- NNTP-Posting-Host: orac.idiap.ch
- In-reply-to: dhinds@leland.Stanford.EDU's message of Fri, 6 Nov 92 23:00:30 GMT
-
- In article <1992Nov6.230030.16637@leland.Stanford.EDU> dhinds@leland.Stanford.EDU (David Hinds) writes:
-
- In article <1de9ckINNfj7@life.ai.mit.edu> tmb@ai.mit.edu writes:
- >I do write and use long-running programs (weeks, months) that use
- >multiple workstations extensively in my work.
- >
- >For such programs, I find that correctness and maintainability are of
- >paramount importance. Efficiency, on the other hand, is of much
- >less importance.
-
- Sorry, I think correctness/maintainability and efficiency are usually
- orthogonal and one can usually have both.
-
- Of course you can have both. But you seem to have lost track of the
- origins of this argument: Rubin claims that "programming languages for
- scientists and mathematicians" should have all sorts of esotheric
- features to support manual optimizing and they should give you very
- low-level access to the machine. But writing correct, maintainable
- code in such a language is an arduous and time consuming task, and
- many people apparently don't even know how to.
-
- Since scientists and mathematicians generally only have little time to
- spend on programming they (including myself) are probably better off
- choosing a programming language that supports safety and reuse (i.e.,
- a language with GC, runtime checks, polymorphism) and that is simple
- and regular enough so that it can be mastered fully in a short amount
- of time.
-
- Thomas.
-