Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer)

From	Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer)
Date	2023-03-31 05:19 +0000
Organization	news.netcologne.de
Message-ID	<23-03-041@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	(6 earlier) <23-03-017@comp.compilers> <23-03-022@comp.compilers> <23-03-029@comp.compilers> <23-03-034@comp.compilers> <23-03-036@comp.compilers>

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gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> schrieb:

> For system like Matlab and Octave, and I believe also for Python,
> or one of many higher math languages, programs should spend
> most of the time in the internal compiled library routines.

They should, but sometimes they don't.

If you run into things not covered by compiled libraries, but which
are compute-intensive, then Matlab and (interpreted) Python run
as slow as molasses, orders of magnitude slower than compiled code.

As far as the projects to create compiled versions with Python
go, one of the problems is that Python is a constantly evolving
target, which can lead to real problems, especially in long-term
program maintenance.  As Konrad Hinsen reported, results in
published science papers have changed due to changes in the Python
infrastructure:

http://blog.khinsen.net/posts/2017/11/16/a-plea-for-stability-in-the-scipy-ecosystem/

At the company I work for, I'm told each Python project will only
use a certain specified version of Python will never be changed for
fear of incompatibilities - they treat each version as a new
programming language :-|

To bring this back a bit towards compilers - a language definition
is an integral part of compiler writing.  If

- the specification to o be implemented is unclear or "whatever
  the reference implementation does"

- the compiler writers always reserve the right for a better,
  incompatible idea

- the compiler writers do not pay careful attention to
  existing specifications

then the resuling compiler will be of poor quality, regardless of
the cool parsing or code generation that go into it.

And I know very well that reading and understanding language
standards is no fun, but I'm told that writing them is even
less fun.

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fledgling assembler programmer Alan.Beck@darkrealms.ca (Alan Beck) - 2023-03-21 17:40 -0400
  Re: fledgling assembler programmer gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-21 17:23 -0700
    Re: fledgling assembler programmer Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2023-03-22 06:49 +0000
      Re: fledgling assembler programmer gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-22 13:31 -0700
        Re: fledgling assembler programmer Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2023-03-23 11:26 +0000
          Re: fledgling assembler programmer gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-24 14:17 -0700
            Re: ancient PL/I, was fledgling assembler programmer drb@ihatespam.msu.edu (Dennis Boone) - 2023-03-24 22:51 +0000
              Re: ancient PL/I, was fledgling assembler programmer gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-24 22:44 -0700
                Re: ancient PL/I, was fledgling assembler programmer gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-25 01:27 -0700
            Re: fledgling assembler programmer Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2023-03-25 13:07 +0100
              Re: fledgling assembler programmer George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2023-03-25 20:54 -0400
                Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2023-03-28 09:21 +0200
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) arnold@freefriends.org (Aharon Robbins) - 2023-03-28 14:42 +0000
                Re: configuguration tools, Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-03-29 18:33 +0000
                Re: configuguration tools, Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2023-03-31 07:10 +0000
                Re: configuguration tools, Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2023-04-02 08:56 +0000
                Re: Portable Software Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2023-03-31 07:49 +0200
                Re: Portable Software anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2023-04-02 10:04 +0000
                Re: Portable Software Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2023-04-05 11:23 +0200
                Re: Portable Software anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2023-04-05 16:30 +0000
                Re: Portable Software Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-04-06 08:35 +0000
                Re: Portable Software Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2023-04-07 15:35 +0200
                Re: Portable Software Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2023-04-08 18:25 +0000
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-28 14:21 -0700
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-03-29 18:34 +0000
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2023-03-28 17:26 -0400
                Re: Portable python Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2023-03-29 13:50 -0400
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-29 11:27 -0700
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2023-03-31 05:19 +0000
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2023-03-31 12:41 -0700
                Re: Portable Software (was: fledgling assembler programmer) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2023-03-31 16:34 +0000
      Re: fledgling assembler programmer arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2023-03-23 13:56 +0000
    Re: fledgling assembler programmer anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2023-03-22 10:02 +0000
  Re: fledgling assembler programmer David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2023-03-22 14:39 +0100
  Re: fledgling assembler programmer George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2023-03-22 14:54 -0400

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