Originally Posted by
Mario F.
As for speed (performance)... well, I'm very critic of this word. I think we overrate its importance. It is natural that, while discussing this topic lines like "this programming language is slow" or "performance is important" are commonplace. But let us be honest about it. Is it really that important?
I say that for a very large percentage of what we do everyday, it isn't. This is not to say we shouldn't try and squeeze every cpu cycle out of our code when we can. This is to say instead we shouldn't do it when we don't have to if that presents us with new problems. If you take a critic unbiased look at whatever software you are developing at that time, you will see this is a big % of your total code.
This, after all, goes hand in hand with the same principles behind early optimization, which I should recall you is generally considered something one should avoid.
So is ruby really that slow? Is C# really that slow? What about Java? No, they aren't for a large part of the world of problem solving. The exceptions to what I'm saying are there for everybody to see and are well known. However, just because I shouldn't develop a 3D game in Java, doesn't mean Java is slow. Same goes for C# or Ruby. It means they aren't the right languages for the task. Meanwhile, there are highly complex scientific programs developed in Java, for instance. So, are these languages really that slow?
I suggest you put your hand over your conscious and give this a real thought. How slow is slow? This is the question, I guess. One that we seldom really ask.
