Slate: extreme optimization

[Lee Salzman]

Nothing stops you from embedding a more efficient numerics language in
Slate. We already do exactly this with Pidgin for writing the VM! We are
a system, NOT just a language. A system can encompass multiple
languages, and to some extent Slate is a system of multiple languages
and may be moreso in the future.

Lee

On Thu, Jul 29, 2004 at 05:42:12PM +0200, Waldemar Kornewald wrote:
> You only talk about the tasks that Slate fits best. Slate is easy to learn and use, powerful, etc., but when you want to write a fast embedded OS for your multimedia-station in your living-room or when you want to write a video codec, you will not even get a fast FFT algorithm.
> You don't know how hard it would be to implement that, do you? :)
> 
> Bye,
> Waldemar
> 
> > It's possible, but not very probable. Self is possibly the closest of 
> > the Smalltalk family, coming in IIRC at half the speed of C on numeric 
> > benchmarks. Even then C is slower than other languages, so it's all 
> > relative. 
> > 
> > If you truely wanted C++ performance or better a whole system compiler
> > would likely be necessary, which is not out of the question. For dynamic
> > compilation, I think the best you could really achieve is on par with
> > some of the top Java interpreters like IBM's or Sun's. Slate has more
> > dynamic baggage than Java that needs to be optimized away, but inlining
> > can go a long way to getting rid of it where necessary.
> > 
> > I look at it a bit differently, though. At this point I have been writing 
> > C/C++ code for about a decade, and I am utterly sick of it. There is so
> > much more I can do in a language like Slate than I could in a similar
> > amount of C/C++. The C/C++ environments are too static and closed off,
> > which makes working with them a pain. So even if you have to sacrifice
> > an order of magnitude in performance, you end up getting a lot more in
> > return. If you view Slate not as a language, but something that will
> > supercede an operating system, IDE, user environment, etc., then it doesn't
> > matter a whole lot what the speed of C/C++ is, because it's not just a 
> > language.
> > 
> > It's not about making Slate as fast as C/C++, it's about making Slate as 
> > fast as Slate can possibly be! That may be slower than C/C++, or it could 
> > be faster even still! Even if Slate was 1/10 the speed of C/C++ at its
> > most optimized, I still would never touch C/C++ again.
> > 
> > Lee
> > 
> > On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 07:22:17PM +0200, Waldemar Kornewald wrote:
> > > Hi Lee,
> > > contratulations to your progress with Slate!
> > > 
> > > Now to my question: Is it possible to make Slate compile code as efficient/fast as C++? If yes, how long would the compilation take? I would like to use Slate as a complete C++ replacement (in the distant future), e.g.: for scientific or multimedia applications. I would accept compilation times that are five times longer than equivalent C++ code as only some small critical modules would have to be optimized, anyway.
> > > Do you think this is possible?
> > > <wondering>If so, why did no LISP or Smalltalk implement it?</wondering>
> > > With interchangable GC+scheduling algorithms for specific modules/apps this could lead to a very cool language that can solve all tasks. Sounds more like a dream, heh? ;)
> > > 
> > > Bye,
> > > Waldemar
> >
>