21 Oct
2006
21 Oct
'06
8:07 a.m.
You wrote...
In general I don't believe an interpreted language
can beat a compiled
language. Interpreting tokens or keywords is just far slower than
compiled code, unless the compiler is severely broken. (Which I wouldn't
call a fair comparison.)
In theory, you are right. In practice I believe you're making too much of a
generalization. In school they typically teach that interpreters are always
slower in order to explain and drive home the differences. In the real world
however, that's quite simply not always the case. I've written both
professionally, and I've seen instances that would obviously suprise you.
Now if you're comparing interpreted languages vs. written by hand assembler,
I could agree with you. But when a compiler is the one generating the
object, well, you may be suprised at how closely a interpreted stack machine
can get to the ratio of required hardware instructions given the platform.
Jay