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From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)
Subject: Re: Has C++ had its day?
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Date: Mon, 3 Jul 1995 07:00:39 GMT
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glascock@esd.dl.nec.com (Trent Glascock) writes:

>Jan.Bytesmiths@acm.org says...
>>Interpretation has nothing to do with it. The two leading Smalltalk
>>implementations are NOT interpreted, and numerous minor ones are not
>>interpreted either.
>
>In VisualWorks source code is converted to "byte codes" at "compile
>time".  "Byte codes" are converted to "machine code" at run time.
>Sounds like an interpreter tokenizing then interpreting to me.

I don't know what VisualWorks does, but there is certainly a big difference
between one the one hand interpreting byte code and on the other hand
converting the byte code to machine code and then executing the machine code.
With the latter, the cost of converting to machine code is paid only once,
but the code may be executed many times.  So the cost of converting the
byte code to machine code can be amortized over multiple iterations of a loop.
This will give much better overall performance than simply interpreting
byte code.

>>Don't get me wrong, C++ has its place (somewhere). But static typing is
>>30-year-old technology -- attacking Smalltalk because it purposely lacks
>>it is a bit like attacking cars because there's nowhere to hang your buggy
>>whip.

Static typing may be 30-year-old technology, but it is technology whose
time has come.  Using a dynamically typed language is fine for small
programs and quick prototypes, but for anything serious I would want to
use a language with strong typing.

-- 
Fergus Henderson
fjh@cs.mu.oz.au
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates.
