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We routinely attribute the long battery life and power of our tablets and tiny laptops to better hardware. However, in many cases, this better hardware runs software that is an order of magnitude faster than older software. For example, our web browsers feel faster because JavaScript interpreters are 10 to 20 times faster than the original ones.... We are also moving away from low-level programming and, yet, our software is still getting faster. I believe that a major understated trend in the last decade or so has been the increase in performance of the higher level languages. If your sole reason for using C++ is speed, and you lack the budget for intensive optimization, you might be misguided.
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Those simple math benchmarks are worthless for measuring performance of a language.
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There are ten pages of comments under that article saying basically the same thing.
You're right though, of course.
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If you *really* need performance, you need a low-level language. There is simply no way around it. Now, whether this low-level language needs to be C++ is a different story.
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_beauw_ wrote: And does this person really think browsers run faster these days? My experience is quite the opposite.
if web pages really are starting to average 1 MB[^] each, i think there's a good case to made against giving web developers higher-and-higher level tools.
we might all have a nice snappy web experience, if the pages weren't bloated monstrosities.
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Shh! Don't let the hamsters hear you say that - this page is over 200K of text, without the images it downloads...and I run adblock!
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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Messuring the speed of programming languages isn't easy, because it's depending on special cases, wether one language is faster or not.
In a software project on university I had to work on a graphical algorithm (that was nearly ten years ago) and I testet one algorithm with C# and C++. Allthough I optimized both algorithms as good as I could, the C++ algorithm was working 20 times faster (in special cases there was a factor of 100). But this was a special case.
Other algorithms aren't faster, when you use c++ but the development costs are higher. So it depends totally on the situation.
For GUIs I never would use C++. But often background algorithms are faster in C++ (of course not by factor 20 or more, but in many cases by factors between 3 and 10).
------------------------------
Author of Primary ROleplaying SysTem
How do I take my coffee? Black as midnight on a moonless night.
War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.
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Yes, it really is - worth it I mean.
In the banking domain C++ is considered the only language for any serious calculations, and at CERN they stated "all related computing done in C++." after the Higgs boson experiment.
In my experience C++ is the best language available for modelling and solving problems efficiently.
What C++ lacks is a standardized library that covers UI, database, and many other tasks that we routinely have to work on - hopefully this will be remedied.
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Espen Harlinn wrote: In the banking domain C++ is considered the only language for any serious
calculations
I don't know about that. When I worked for American Express we were using VB.net.  Fortunately it was not time-critical processing.
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.NET is for sissies.
Veni, vidi, vici.
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If you want performance *across platforms*, then yes, it's worth it.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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There are also a lot of disadvantages to C++, most significantly is the lack of Memory Management of the type provided by C#. Thus the difficulty of creating bug-free code is great. Also, when you look at performance costs, when developing applications a significant performance cost is the calls to the framework methods and communication to remote computers. A good rule of thumb is to create an application with maintainability as the being one of the most important criteria. Later, the code can be profiled and specific code can be targeted to possibly significantly improve performance. There are cases where some code can be targeted early in the development process to ensure good performance.
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Clifford Nelson wrote: most significantly is the lack of Memory Management of the type provided by C#
i've been writing C++ for 20 years or so, and i literally can't remember the last time i had a problem with memory management. with the STL's containers & strings, smart pointers, and the ability to write classes which manage their own memory usage, the problem pretty much goes away.
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How would you remember if you had a problem with your memory? Would you do a Memento?
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Steve Jobs might not have started the desktop metaphor, but he did bring it the world’s eye with the introduction of the Macintosh. Before the Mac there was no skeuomorphism, because there was no graphical user interface. For almost thirty years the iconography of desktop objects have greeted users as they stare into their computer screens. The desktop metaphor has given new computer users a familiar foundation to ground their experiences upon, and expert users terminology such as “files” and “folders” we still use today. Apple’s history with skeuomorphism reflects the desire to present users with the best technology has to offer, even if that desire is misguided.
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Terrence Dorsey wrote: cause there was no graphical user interface.
I think PARC might have an alternative view to this....
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Keith Barrow wrote: I think PARC might have an alternative view to this...
Then he should have said "Because there was no graphical user interface that anybody actually used."
Look at me still talking when there's science to do
When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you
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There has still been no word about XNA at all and some who have had direct involvement with MS have simply been told “No Comment”. if they did indeed intend to kill off XNA then they would have no qualms doing so as past experience has “supposedly” told us that XNA is not in their focus. My advice as always, quit speculation and lets just see. XNA works fine as it is. SunBurn, Unity, MonoGame and the road ahead.
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Postbox’s exit from the Mac App Store should sound very familiar to anyone who buys Mac software. If you read between the lines a bit, I think the real story there is one we’ve seen a lot since June 1: they tolerated the App Store’s lack of paid upgrade mechanics before, but sandboxing — and more accurately, needing to remove important app features because of their incompatibility with the current set of sandboxing entitlements — was the last straw. How many good apps will be pulled from the App Store before Apple cares?
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4 things I learned outside the classroom that might help somebody. Read the comments for more tips.
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Designing and building hardware is easy. That is, easy relative to SELLING hardware. Retail, hardware supply chain management, inventory management, support, etc… are huge endeavors that Microsoft has very little capability for. If you have not actually tried to build and sell a hardware product you cannot really understand just how challenging it is. The DNA of Microsoft is that of a software company. Zune proved this. The ZuneHD was (and is) a fantastic piece of integrated hardware & software. But Microsoft’s execution in sellingit was bush league. But we will see more hardware from Microsoft.
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Terrence Dorsey wrote: The DNA of Microsoft is that of a software company. Zune proved this.
Umm... Xbox 360?
Ok, so the first four years or so of them tended to melt eventually, but hey. It is a very successful product.
Look at me still talking when there's science to do
When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you
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The FinFisher spyware, produced by the UK-based Gamma Group, has been for years as elusive as it was notorious. Since protesters found FinFisher company records in an abandoned Egyptian state security building last year, security researchers and activists around the world have been eager to get their hands on a copy of the tools in the FinFisher suite, especially the component called FinSpy. FinSpy has been the subject of particular interest because of its ability to wiretap calls made over the Skype network, which is widely used among activists all over the world, often in the belief that it is more secure than other forms of communication. I'd never heard of "booby-trapped" code before. How does that work?
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We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It's a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that's true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality. Also, Gabe owns a competing game distribution platform.
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