alt Hacker NewsThere will always be cases (like audio processing, car brakes, pace makers) where hard real-time constraints prohibit GC languages (as well as l1 cache, instruction reordering and other optimizations). Also, consider that Python's performance frequently originates in it's bindings to libraries written in C, C++, Fortran, Rust.
I recently ran a few Java benchmarks and found that an array holding a bunch of objects incurred approx 3x the number of bytes compared to the expected number based on underlying class data structure. With current RAM prices, that is something to consider if you're building software that's meant to scale. Mileage may vary, but I expect JavaScript or Python will be similar.
So, sure. There is a case to be made that ergonomics and dev velocity. And premature micro optimizations might take your focus away from good systems architecture. But I've frequently found the need to peal of leaky abstractions and having to understand and be savvy at low level stuff too. Nothing wrong with studying the guts of a C64 or Amiga, today.
Python, Java or TypeScript are good educational tools, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you'd confine yourself to them without understanding computers.
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> There will always be cases (like audio processing, car brakes, pace makers) where hard real-time constraints prohibit GC languages (as well as l1 cache, instruction reordering and other optimizations). Also, consider that Python's performance frequently originates in it's bindings to libraries written in C, C++, Fortran, Rust.
Sure. And every Python programmer who has any interest in those use cases learns about the issues quickly. Or more to the point: a big chunk of them are things you'd only do if you were employed to do them, and employers are setting the language requirements already. And Python programmers in particular are well aware of compiled-language bindings; that's the reason they're trying to use the packages that make package installation non-trivial.
Huge swaths of use cases don't require performance.
> Python, Java or TypeScript are good educational tools, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you'd confine yourself to them without understanding computers.
This is an extremely strange thing to say when replying to someone who just described having extensive experience with C++ and multiple flavours of assembly.
> I recently ran a few Java benchmarks and found that an array holding a bunch of objects incurred approx 3x the number of bytes compared to the expected number based on underlying class data structure.
It was also strange to say that if you also had this experience yourself. A solid "understanding of computers" would have given you a better mental model of what Java needs to allocate. Results like this are because "the expected number" was not well thought out.
> if you're building software that's meant to scale.
... And yet everyone just keeps pumping out Electron apps. Curious, that.
What's your point here? The higher the language level, the less performant they are? Why are using anything but assembler then?
Note that, while complex, there exist GCs that can handle both soft real time and even hard real time constraints - especially for Java. Memory overhead is a problem with GC languages, though, and that one is by design.