Subj : Re: OO compilers and efficiency
To   : comp.programming
From : Gerry Quinn
Date : Thu Jul 28 2005 01:18 pm

In article <1122470945.664579.51800@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>, 
robert.thorpe@antenova.com says...
> Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > Nonsense.  The C-like bits should be encapsulated in classes with
> > standard interfaces - there is no reason for them to be exposed to the
> > main part of the program.
 
> Ideally yes.  But if you're writing a part of the program in the C
> style it is probably for performance reasons.  Parts of the code like
> this are commonly changed as new ideas come along for improving
> performance.  This means although these parts of the code are behind
> standard interfaces they're important and their maintainability is
> important.

That probably means they weren't thought out properly in the first 
place.

I'm sure there are cases where programs are continually modified to 
improve performance.  But surely they should be an exception, given 
that computing power increases all the time, and if performance was 
merely adequate last year, it should be satisfactory this year and more 
than satisfactory next year without any further modification?

Thus in most cases, the programmer should be assigned to a more useful 
task such as improving the user interface, rather than thinking of 
ideas to improve performance and introducing bugs.

- Gerry Quinn

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