Guile and speed (Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Adding scripting language)

[Lalo Martins <lalo@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 11:14:35PM +0100, Jules Bean wrote:
> Artur Biesiadowski wrote:
>
> > My proposition is to add can_build array to city and send it with city
> > data - filling on server with results of all can_build routines. It
> > shouldn't be problem for network traffic (bitfield will maybe 20-30
> > bytes and city packet is few times larger), but I'm not sure how it will
> > affect cpu usage - after all a lot of scripts will have to be run every
> > turn for every thing that changes state.
> 
> True.  It is for this reason that I favour a 'partially compiled'
> language - like perl or java - since they tend to run faster.

Actually Guile is very good at that; it's awfully slow (at least
with the version people have today) to _load_ code, and to start
itself, but once code is `memoized' it runs as fast as any
partially compiled stuff - like perl or python, and faster than
java in my experience.

Actually, I said in the Guile list something about partially
compiled perl files and they flamed me about this (wich made me
research the subject deeper); in fact, perl is _not_ partially
compiled. It compiles to memory, not to a file, just like Guile.
Now with perl 5.005 (is this the correct number?) it includes a
compiler, but that's not used by default.

[]s,
                                               |alo
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