• C is the most efficient programming language

    From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to All on Tuesday, November 02, 2021 09:45:49
    I haven't done much programming in pure C, but I thought this article was interesting. It says C is the most efficient programming language as far as power consumption, speed, and memory usage:

    https://bit.ly/3ECS5QT

    Full link:

    https://cryptomode.com/c-is-the-most-energy-efficient-and-fastest-programming-l anguage-study-finds/

    Nightfox

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Nightfox on Tuesday, November 02, 2021 17:04:13
    Re: C is the most efficient programming language
    By: Nightfox to All on Tue Nov 02 2021 09:45 am

    I haven't done much programming in pure C, but I thought this article was interesting. It says C is the most efficient programming language as far as power consumption, speed, and memory usage:

    They actually have Python over C in regards to memory usage. (!?!)

    Assembly language could beat C in those same categories, but it's not a serious contender for similar reasons that C is not a serious contender for a lot of software development tasks - because there are other very important factors such as development time, verification and validation, extensibility and maintenance.

    I like and use C a lot, but it's not "the most efficient programming language" for all forms of efficiency. Depending on the job, some other forms of efficiency matter more than eeking out that extra 1% of performance or resource optimization.
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Digital Man on Tuesday, November 02, 2021 18:39:33
    Re: C is the most efficient programming language
    By: Digital Man to Nightfox on Tue Nov 02 2021 05:04 pm

    They actually have Python over C in regards to memory usage. (!?!)

    ? C is #3 on their memory list, and Python is #12 on the list for memory usage.

    serious contender for similar reasons that C is not a serious contender for a lot of software development tasks - because there are other very important factors such as development time, verification and validation, extensibility and maintenance.

    I like and use C a lot, but it's not "the most efficient programming language" for all forms of efficiency. Depending on the job, some other forms of efficiency matter more than eeking out that extra 1% of performance or resource optimization.

    I agree. I think the article meant it as efficient for energy use, C, and memory use. But there are other languages that are better for productivity.

    Nightfox

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Nightfox on Wednesday, November 03, 2021 13:30:18
    Re: C is the most efficient programming language
    By: Nightfox to Digital Man on Tue Nov 02 2021 06:39 pm

    Re: C is the most efficient programming language
    By: Digital Man to Nightfox on Tue Nov 02 2021 05:04 pm

    They actually have Python over C in regards to memory usage. (!?!)

    ? C is #3 on their memory list, and Python is #12 on the list for memory usage.

    Sorry, Pascal - the *other* 'P' language. :-)
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  • From Ksource@VERT/MUTINY to Nightfox on Saturday, November 06, 2021 02:00:39
    Re: C is the most efficient programming language
    By: Nightfox to All on Tue Nov 02 2021 09:45:49

    I haven't done much programming in pure C, but I thought this article was interesting. It says C is the most efficient programming language as far as power consumption, speed, and memory usage:

    I mean it's not a huge surprise. They didn't have assembly on there, so you have your low-level/systems languages at the top (C,
    C++, Rust) where the specific ordering between them doesn't matter too much. The thing about these cross-language benchmarks is it
    all comes down to how the benchmark code was written. I'm surprised to see Fortran do so poorly. Maybe there haven't been any old
    geezers writing good Fortran code for the CLBG (which was their source pool).

    Also, good job whoever wrote the Python code for CLBG! Ha!

    I guess what's new is that this paper puts a new green spin on things. Since we're more energy-conscious these days, we can
    describe languages as "energy-efficient" instead of just "efficient". Can I get a carbon tax credit for writing more C code?

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  • From Boraxman@VERT/MSRDBBS to Digital Man on Saturday, November 06, 2021 19:33:00
    Digital Man wrote to Nightfox <=-

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    Re: C is the most efficient programming
    language
    By: Nightfox to All on Tue
    Nov 02 2021 09:45 am

    I haven't done much programming in pure C, but I thought this article was interesting. It says C is the most efficient programming language as far as power consumption, speed, and memory usage:

    They actually have Python over C in regards to memory usage. (!?!)

    Assembly language could beat C in those same categories, but it's not a serious contender for similar reasons that C is not a serious contender for a lot of software development tasks - because there are other very important factors such as development time, verification and
    validation, extensibility and maintenance.

    I like and use C a lot, but it's not "the most efficient programming language" for all forms of efficiency. Depending on the job, some other forms of efficiency matter more than eeking out that extra 1% of performance or resource optimization. --
    digital man

    I wouldn't call Assembly a Language. There isn't really a language per so, just mnemonics and instructions to the assembler itself. It is more a system to assembly machine code, and the efficiency of assembly is heavily dependent on the ability of the programmer.

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Boraxman on Saturday, November 06, 2021 11:58:02
    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Digital Man on Sat Nov 06 2021 07:33 pm

    I wouldn't call Assembly a Language. There isn't really a language per so, just mnemonics and instructions to the assembler itself. It is more a system to assembly machine code, and the efficiency of assembly is heavily dependent on the ability of the programmer.

    Agreed, except, the different assemblers do have their own "language". They're unique and non-standard, but still a language of sorts.
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Boraxman on Saturday, November 06, 2021 11:37:00
    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Digital Man on Sat Nov 06 2021 07:33 pm

    I wouldn't call Assembly a Language. There isn't really a language per so, just mnemonics and instructions to the assembler itself. It is more a system to assembly machine code, and the efficiency of assembly is heavily dependent on the ability of the programmer.

    I always thought assembly was a language, in that it consists of statements you can use to control logic and program flow. Assembly has a 'vocabulary' of keywords (or instructions) that make up the language. But every CPU has its own assembly.

    Nightfox

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  • From Boraxman@VERT/MSRDBBS to Nightfox on Friday, December 24, 2021 22:17:00
    Nightfox wrote to Boraxman <=-

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    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Digital Man on
    Sat Nov 06 2021 07:33 pm

    I wouldn't call Assembly a Language. There isn't really a language per so, just mnemonics and instructions to the assembler itself. It is more a system to assembly machine code, and the efficiency of assembly is heavily dependent on the ability of the programmer.

    I always thought assembly was a language, in that it consists of statements you can use to control logic and program flow. Assembly has
    a 'vocabulary' of keywords (or instructions) that make up the language.
    But every CPU has its own assembly.

    Nightfox

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    True, but with C, something like
    for (int x = 0; x < 100; ++x) {
    a*=x;
    }

    That code is defined by a language, a specification. What "for" and "int" mean are defined by the language. The structure of the code is defined by the language. That is to say, C is actually a set of rules, a formal language that then gets converted to machine code.

    But with Assembler, there is not formal Assembler specification, no Assembly keywords, etc, they are all implementation specific.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Boraxman on Friday, December 24, 2021 09:57:34
    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on Fri Dec 24 2021 10:17 pm

    That code is defined by a language, a specification. What "for" and "int" mean are defined by the language. The structure of the code is defined by the language. That is to say, C is actually a set of rules, a formal language that then gets converted to machine code.

    But with Assembler, there is not formal Assembler specification, no Assembly keywords, etc, they are all implementation specific.

    But still, assembler for each processor is defined by the operations that the processor understands, and there is a specific syntax for each operation.

    Nightfox

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  • From Boraxman@VERT/MSRDBBS to Nightfox on Saturday, December 25, 2021 09:12:00
    Nightfox wrote to Boraxman <=-

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    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on
    Fri Dec 24 2021 10:17 pm

    That code is defined by a language, a specification. What "for" and "int" mean are defined by the language. The structure of the code is defined by the language. That is to say, C is actually a set of rules, a formal language that then gets converted to machine code.

    But with Assembler, there is not formal Assembler specification, no Assembly keywords, etc, they are all implementation specific.

    But still, assembler for each processor is defined by the operations
    that the processor understands, and there is a specific syntax for each operation.

    Nightfox

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    Have you ever used AT&T syntax?

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Boraxman on Friday, December 24, 2021 22:40:54
    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on Sat Dec 25 2021 09:12 am

    But still, assembler for each processor is defined by the operations
    that the processor understands, and there is a specific syntax for
    each operation.

    Have you ever used AT&T syntax?

    I haven't.

    Nightfox

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  • From Boraxman@VERT/MSRDBBS to Nightfox on Sunday, December 26, 2021 21:27:00
    Nightfox wrote to Boraxman <=-

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    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on
    Sat Dec 25 2021 09:12 am

    But still, assembler for each processor is defined by the operations
    that the processor understands, and there is a specific syntax for
    each operation.

    Have you ever used AT&T syntax?

    I haven't.

    It's an alternative syntax for assembler, used by GAS and I guess other assemblers for Unix too.

    An example from a program I wrote is below

    movl %eax, BRK_Start
    movl %eax, BRK_End
    movl (%esp), %ecx
    cmp $1, %ecx
    je clifail
    cmp $3, %ecx
    jg clifail
    movl 8(%esp), %ebx
    jl success
    movb (%ebx), %al


    As you can see, the syntax is familiar, but different. Source and destination are the other way around for MOV commands, the offset notation is different, immediate values are prefixed with a $.

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Boraxman on Sunday, December 26, 2021 08:53:51
    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on Sun Dec 26 2021 09:27 pm

    Nightfox wrote to Boraxman <=-

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    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on
    Sat Dec 25 2021 09:12 am

    But still, assembler for each processor is defined by the operations
    that the processor understands, and there is a specific syntax for
    each operation.

    Have you ever used AT&T syntax?

    I haven't.

    It's an alternative syntax for assembler, used by GAS and I guess other assemblers for Unix too.

    An example from a program I wrote is below

    movl %eax, BRK_Start
    movl %eax, BRK_End
    movl (%esp), %ecx
    cmp $1, %ecx
    je clifail
    cmp $3, %ecx
    jg clifail
    movl 8(%esp), %ebx
    jl success
    movb (%ebx), %al


    As you can see, the syntax is familiar, but different. Source and destination are the other way around for MOV commands, the offset notation is different, immediate values are prefixed with a $.

    Motorola 68K assemblers used the "move source, destination" as well (opposite of Intel/x86 assemblers).

    Basically, there's no real "standard" when it comes to assembly languages.
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  • From Boraxman@VERT/MSRDBBS to Digital Man on Wednesday, December 29, 2021 15:30:00
    Digital Man wrote to Boraxman <=-

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    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on
    Sun Dec 26 2021 09:27 pm

    Nightfox wrote to Boraxman <=-

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    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Nightfox on
    Sat Dec 25 2021 09:12 am

    But still, assembler for each processor is defined by the operations
    that the processor understands, and there is a specific syntax for
    each operation.

    Have you ever used AT&T syntax?

    I haven't.

    It's an alternative syntax for assembler, used by GAS and I guess other assemblers for Unix too.

    An example from a program I wrote is below

    movl %eax, BRK_Start
    movl %eax, BRK_End
    movl (%esp), %ecx
    cmp $1, %ecx
    je clifail
    cmp $3, %ecx
    jg clifail
    movl 8(%esp), %ebx
    jl success
    movb (%ebx), %al


    As you can see, the syntax is familiar, but different. Source and destination are the other way around for MOV commands, the offset notation is different, immediate values are prefixed with a $.

    Motorola 68K assemblers used the "move source, destination" as well (opposite of Intel/x86 assemblers).

    Basically, there's no real "standard" when it comes to assembly
    languages. --

    Exactly, which is why I don't consider a language, because there isn't actually a standard to construct a language. Each author of an assembler can make up whatever they like. FASM is a language. MASM is a language, AT&T Intel is a language, NASM is a language, etc etc


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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Boraxman on Wednesday, December 29, 2021 08:59:29
    Re: C is the most efficient p
    By: Boraxman to Digital Man on Wed Dec 29 2021 03:30 pm

    Exactly, which is why I don't consider a language, because there isn't actually a standard to construct a language. Each author of an assembler can make up whatever they like. FASM is a language. MASM is a language, AT&T Intel is a language, NASM is a language, etc etc

    I see what you mean about assembler. But I'd think you could also argue that each processor's assembler is its own language, even though there is no standard for assembler.

    Nightfox

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  • From Dr. What@VERT/DMINE to Nightfox on Thursday, December 30, 2021 08:27:00
    Nightfox wrote to Boraxman <=-

    I see what you mean about assembler. But I'd think you could also
    argue that each processor's assembler is its own language, even though there is no standard for assembler.

    There sort of is. Back in the 80's they had macro assemblers.

    Think of these as in between something like C and assembler. It looked like assembly language, but it was "generic" (to a point). The compiler (that's what it was) would convert your generic assembler into the specific assembly code for your procssor.

    So, in theory, you could write one set of code for a family of processors (Intel 80x or Z80) that could be compiled across all the processors in the family.

    I don't know if they had one that would let you write for something like the Z80 and the 6502, though.


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  • From Boraxman@VERT/MSRDBBS to Dr. What on Friday, December 31, 2021 10:22:00
    Dr. What wrote to Nightfox <=-

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    Nightfox wrote to Boraxman <=-

    I see what you mean about assembler. But I'd think you could also
    argue that each processor's assembler is its own language, even though there is no standard for assembler.

    There sort of is. Back in the 80's they had macro assemblers.

    Think of these as in between something like C and assembler. It looked like assembly language, but it was "generic" (to a point). The
    compiler (that's what it was) would convert your generic assembler into the specific assembly code for your procssor.

    So, in theory, you could write one set of code for a family of
    processors (Intel 80x or Z80) that could be compiled across all the processors in the family.

    I don't know if they had one that would let you write for something
    like the Z80 and the 6502, though.

    Was HLA (High Level Assembly) one of those? I did look into it, but I always preferred to be explicit about the instructions I used. When I use assembler, it is because I am targetting an explicit instruction set and want to make the decisions about which instructions to use myself. The one time I thought a "generic" solution would be useful is when I want assembler that runs on both 32bit and 64bit Intel natively.

    Otherwise, I just use C as my generic assembler, with intrinsics where need be.

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  • From Dr. What@VERT/DMINE to Boraxman on Friday, December 31, 2021 08:32:00
    Boraxman wrote to Dr. What <=-

    Was HLA (High Level Assembly) one of those? I did look into it, but I always preferred to be explicit about the instructions I used. When I
    use assembler, it is because I am targetting an explicit instruction
    set and want to make the decisions about which instructions to use
    myself. The one time I thought a "generic" solution would be useful is when I want assembler that runs on both 32bit and 64bit Intel natively.

    I never really got into assembly language other than to know it was there. I've learned much more as I've been doing more research into the history of PCs.

    I went from BASIC as a kid, straight to FORTRAN, Pascal, LISP, C and more.

    I think I did one class in Univac assembly in college. But it was mainly to know what was happening "under the hood" when we worked in the higher level languages.

    I did work on some FORTRAN programs for GM 20+ years ago that used an assembly language subprogram that was self-modifying. The computer had a fancy instruction they needed to use, but the assembler didn't support it, so they wrote their subprogram to modify itself to use the fancy instruction the first time it was called.

    Assembler was mostly frowned upon in my work because of the time and resources it took to use it. People time was more expsensive than computer time.


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  • From Boraxman@VERT/HZBBS to Dr. What on Saturday, January 01, 2022 12:39:00
    Dr. What wrote to Boraxman <=-

    Boraxman wrote to Dr. What <=-

    Was HLA (High Level Assembly) one of those? I did look into it, but I always preferred to be explicit about the instructions I used. When I
    use assembler, it is because I am targetting an explicit instruction
    set and want to make the decisions about which instructions to use
    myself. The one time I thought a "generic" solution would be useful is when I want assembler that runs on both 32bit and 64bit Intel natively.

    I never really got into assembly language other than to know it was
    there. I've learned much more as I've been doing more research into the history of PCs.

    I went from BASIC as a kid, straight to FORTRAN, Pascal, LISP, C and
    more.

    I think I did one class in Univac assembly in college. But it was
    mainly to know what was happening "under the hood" when we worked in
    the higher level languages.

    I did work on some FORTRAN programs for GM 20+ years ago that used an assembly language subprogram that was self-modifying. The computer had
    a fancy instruction they needed to use, but the assembler didn't
    support it, so they wrote their subprogram to modify itself to use the fancy instruction the first time it was called.

    Assembler was mostly frowned upon in my work because of the time and resources it took to use it. People time was more expsensive than computer time.

    I went straight from Basic to Assembler. Mostly because I wanted to write 'machine code' for a while, and at the time, that is what I got, an assembler. Didn't have a C compiler or anything like that. It was slow going to develop stuff, especially when it was so easy to hard lock the computer, and this was on a machine without a reset button. So I would have to turn it off and on to reset.

    But it IS fun, and even recently I've enjoying doing some simply assembler stuff for Linux, the Vic 20 and for DOS. Something satisfying about having complete control of the hardware, playing with hardware interrupts, being able to account for every byte, self modifiable code.

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