Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Date: 09:04:44 11/13/02
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On November 13, 2002 at 11:55:45, Bob Durrett wrote: >Someone once said here, at CCC, that choice of programming language is mostly a >matter of personal preference: "If someone learns C before anything else, they >will prefer programming in C simply because they feel more comfortable in C." That's a bit of an overgeneralization. I learned BASIC before anything else, but I wouldn't use it for anything now. But yes, I'd pick the language I'm most comfortable in, which would be Object Pascal or C. >And yet, with the pressure to produce the highest rated chess engine, it would >seem that programmers would select "the very best" language [and the very best >computer] if they were able to use that language. > >If it is true that "the Fritz people" [F.M.?] use assembly language to avoid >"optimizers," then maybe that is the best language of all, other than machine >language. [Of course, no one would use maching language! : ) ] Machine language is the same assembly. It's just written out in a way that humans can read. You won't make a faster program in machine language than you will in assembly. But you will make a program faster in assembly ;) >A person who spends all day at work using a particular computer will wish to >program their chess engines in the language they use at work. That is >understandable, especially if they wish to produce a chess engine to use on >their "work computer" during breaks at work. That makes no sense to me. You could do Perl programming for a living and write the engine in C. Maybe if your work was Perl programming you'd be more familiar with it and hence pick it for that reason though, but that has nothing to do with the computer itself? >But isn't there a penalty for doing that? In other words, doesn't that >mean that the chess engine may not be >as fast as it could have been otherwise? Yes. If the compilers for that language are not as good as those for another, this can be an issue. >Since choice of language pretty much dictates the compilers, then it seems that >one would chose languages which do not require inferior compilers. Maybe Linux >is a poor choice of language for just that reason? Linux is not a language. -- GCP
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