Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 03:01:32 08/12/04
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On August 11, 2004 at 15:33:16, Sune Fischer wrote: >For chess, since you ask, it must be fast so either C or C++. I don't quite agree. Speed is vastly overrated in computer chess. Except for a few games between the top professional engines, speed is rarely the decisive factor. Bugs and efficiency on a higher level (i.e. good algorithms) are far more important. It is better to just choose some language with which you feel comfortable, and with which you are able to write clear and reasonably bug-free code. It should be a language with an optimizing compiler which compiles to native machine code, but there are plenty of languages to choose from. Ada, C, Delphi, Lisp and ML are some of the possibilities. Any of these languages should be fast enough to bring you up to the level of the top amateur engines. >Personally I see no reason to use C, C++ offers a lot more and there's >no speed penalty. There is a portability penalty, though. And although C++ may offer a lot more, I don't see why you need a lot more. >C is a smaller language and easier to learn, but you might pick up some bad >habits that will take you a while to get rid of if you move on to OOP. I'm >talking from experience here. C and C++ are both bad as first languages, IMHO. >It is estimated that C# is about 3 times faster than C++ (MFC) to develop in, so >for applications that aren't speed critical C# would probably be the obvious >choice. 3 times faster is not much. I have never programmed in C# myself, but if the 3 times faster than C++ estimate is correct, I really hope C# is not the future. Tord
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