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"red floyd" <> wrote in message
news:ZH5Zi.6702$ ...
> Malcolm McLean wrote:
>
>>>
>> Yes, but typically embedded processors do jobs which are utterly trivial.
>> Like turn on a few lights in a washing machine.
>>
>
> To quote Pauli.... This isn't right. It isn't even wrong.
>
> Lets see.... avionics, video codec, audio codec, other multimedia, printer
> engine....
>
> Yeah, those are just turning on a few lights.

Some of the lights are gigantic furnaces filled with
dnh3 and h2 at extremely high temperatures.

On Nov 9, 12:48 pm, edie...@rcn.com wrote:
> On Nov 9, 2:48 pm, Ian Collins <ian-n...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > One can write **** poor inefficient code in either language, or one can
> > write elegant efficient code in either. Programmers write code, not
> > compilers, so there isn't anything to study or discuss.

> These days with 3ghz computers with more than 1 gbyte RAM what is so
> important about elegant, efficient code?

Efficient code has more than one meaning:

1) If you mean fast program produced from that "efficient code," those
fast computers don't help at all with this simple problem: user
interfaces are not responsive. I click, nothing happens... I select a
pull-down menu, it is empty for a while. No matter how fast your
computer is.

2) If you mean code that is easy to maintain and alter, then I
completely disagree with you that fast computers can help. If there
are 14 files to modify to add one property to some component, then
your code is inefficient no matter what.

3) Some other meaning?

Ali

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:03:41 -0800, red floyd wrote:

> Malcolm McLean wrote:
>
>
>> Yes, but typically embedded processors do jobs which are utterly
>> trivial. Like turn on a few lights in a washing machine.
>>
>>
> To quote Pauli.... This isn't right. It isn't even wrong.
>
> Lets see.... avionics, video codec, audio codec, other multimedia,
> printer engine....
>
> Yeah, those are just turning on a few lights.

Well, what can you expect from McLean, one who is so incompetent
that he does not know that he does not know?

wrote:
....
>>>> edie...@rcn.com wrote:
>>>>> These days with 3ghz computers with more than 1 gbyte RAM what is so
>>>>> important about elegant, efficient code?
....
> Jeez, I just brought it up as a topic for discussion, didn't mean for
> anyone to get nasty

You're getting a nasty response because a lot of us have been victims of
programmers who felt exactly the same way you do. We use applications
that run too slow and take up too much memory, for no particularly good
reason, just because somebody thought there was no point to worrying
about efficiency. We update programs written by other people that are
maintenance nightmares because the original author thought that there
was no importance to writing code elegantly.

"Juha Nieminen" <> wrote in message
> wrote:
>> These days with 3ghz computers with more than 1 gbyte RAM what is so
>> important about elegant, efficient code?
>
> Ever played a modern computer game with millions of polygons per
> level, even tens of thousands of polygons visible at the same time,
> complex physics, etc? Do you want to play that kind of game at 0.5
> frames per second or at 30 frames per second in your 3GHz computer?
>
That rate-limiting step in such a game is probably the rasteriser rather
than the main processor.

--
Free games and programming goodies.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

"red floyd" <> wrote in message
news:ZH5Zi.6702$ ...
> Malcolm McLean wrote:
>
>>>
>> Yes, but typically embedded processors do jobs which are utterly trivial.
>> Like turn on a few lights in a washing machine.
>>
>
> To quote Pauli.... This isn't right. It isn't even wrong.
>
> Lets see.... avionics, video codec, audio codec, other multimedia, printer
> engine....
>
> Yeah, those are just turning on a few lights.
>
"Typically" means there will be a few counter-examples.

--
Free games and programming goodies.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

Malcolm McLean wrote, On 10/11/07 08:58:
>
> "red floyd" <> wrote in message
> news:ZH5Zi.6702$ ...
>> Malcolm McLean wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>> Yes, but typically embedded processors do jobs which are utterly
>>> trivial. Like turn on a few lights in a washing machine.
>>>
>>
>> To quote Pauli.... This isn't right. It isn't even wrong.
>>
>> Lets see.... avionics, video codec, audio codec, other multimedia,
>> printer engine....
>>
>> Yeah, those are just turning on a few lights.
>>
> "Typically" means there will be a few counter-examples.

Those "few counter-example" include within sight of me at least 7
embedded processors, the GPS I use in my car, and a minimum of one other
processor in my car. In fact, it will include at least one processor in
every DVD player, digital TV, DTV receiver, satalite decoder, cable TV
decoder, GPS, car and computer being sold as well as a lot of other kit.
Yes, computers *do* have embedded processors in them. I think you will
be hard pressed to find a household in the UK without a few of those
items. So this is NOT a small number of counter-examples, rather it is
several large industries.
--
Flash Gordon

Malcolm McLean wrote:
>
> "red floyd" <> wrote in message
> news:ZH5Zi.6702$ ...
>> Malcolm McLean wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>> Yes, but typically embedded processors do jobs which are utterly
>>> trivial. Like turn on a few lights in a washing machine.
>>>
>>
>> To quote Pauli.... This isn't right. It isn't even wrong.
>>
>> Lets see.... avionics, video codec, audio codec, other multimedia,
>> printer engine....
>>
>> Yeah, those are just turning on a few lights.
>>
> "Typically" means there will be a few counter-examples.
>
I bet there's more cell phones shipped a year than washing machines.

--
Ian Collins.

On Nov 10, 3:17 am, Generic Usenet Account <use...@sta.samsung.com>
wrote:
> A lot of research has been done to prove that the contention that C
> code is more efficient and more compact than equivalent C++ code is a
> myth.

C++ is slower than C for the first one may call three functions:
cpp.constructor(), cpp.function() and cpp.destructor(). If it doesn't
call the constructor and destructor, it's C.

"Malcolm McLean" <> wrote in message
news:...
> "Juha Nieminen" <> wrote in message
>> wrote:
>>> These days with 3ghz computers with more than 1 gbyte RAM what is so
>>> important about elegant, efficient code?
>>
>> Ever played a modern computer game with millions of polygons per
>> level, even tens of thousands of polygons visible at the same time,
>> complex physics, etc? Do you want to play that kind of game at 0.5
>> frames per second or at 30 frames per second in your 3GHz computer?
>>
> That rate-limiting step in such a game is probably the rasteriser rather
> than the main processor.
>

maybe if the game is heavily loaded with shaders...

but, at least for fairly basic rendering (no shaders, no stenciling, ...), I
suspect it is actually the case that a lot more often ends up going into
stuff going on in the main processor, than in the video card itself.

it may not seem like it, but the main engine has a hard time keeping up,
even when doing bunches of vertex-level calculations.

the speed of the graphics card should not be so easily discounted.

(of course, use shaders or enable stenciling, and the thing typically slows
way down...).


> --
> Free games and programming goodies.
> http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm
>
>
>
>