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Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

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Re: Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

#151
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how the game works. The community "plays the game" by submitting better benchmarks when they come up with better solutions.

It's not really about how the game works, it's whether the study is using sane data. In this case, it very much isn't and it should have been obvious to them the data is bad.

The site has been through several iterations. Here is the description from 12 years ago:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070503205039/http://shootout.a...

Re: Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

#153
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really about how the game works, it's whether the study is using sane data. In this case, it very much isn't and it should have been obvious to them the data is bad.

The site has been through several iterations. Here is the description from 12 years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20070503205039/http://shootout.a...

I don't understand what that's supposed to show.

Re: Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

#154
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately there are really extensive online resources you can consult for details! For example the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Cli...

The United Nations has something like 30 different climate models. Also no one can forecast next month’s weather accurately, much less the weather from 12 years from now. Or do you know of a more accurate forecasting model? Such a model would be extraordinarily useful in agriculture and emergency management, for example.

This is like arguing that the science behind vaccines is invalid because doctors can’t predict when you’re going to catch your next cold. It’s willfully obtuse and has no place on HN.

Re: Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to pick on it. But those languages are significantly harder to develop for. Go/Swift are trying to be general improvements that maintain and improve upon developer productivity while achieving great performance and efficient memory utilization (which if you look at the paper is one area Java is not necessarily great at).

Makes sense. It didn't come across that way since you mentioned the energy savings and then immediately mentioned those alternatives. Interestingly though, while Java used a lot of memory, the energy expenditure for DRAM is still one of the lowest for Java. And they found little correlation between memory usage and DRAM energy in general. I wonder why that is.

Yeah they only looked at peak memory. They noted it would be more useful to look at continuous memory usage in future research.

Also take note that the scale of the graphs is different. E.g. Figures 5 & 6 makes it look like Java energy is super low when it's really just similar to the compiled languages.[1]

[1] http://greenlab.di.uminho.pt/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/sleF...

Re: Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

#156
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately there are really extensive online resources you can consult for details! For example the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Cli...

The United Nations has something like 30 different climate models. Also no one can forecast next month’s weather accurately, much less the weather from 12 years from now. Or do you know of a more accurate forecasting model? Such a model would be extraordinarily useful in agriculture and emergency management, for example.

Climate and weather are different. When people are forecasting 12 years into the future, they’re not predicting the weather, they’re predicting the climate.

Just pointing out this distinction because the “can’t predict next week’s weather” is a disingenuous soundbite that has been used by climate change deniers to discredit climatologists in the eyes of the of the public who don’t understand the difference. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren’t trying to be disingenuous, but the distinction still makes your question somewhat irrelevant.

Re: Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

#157

Hope that the cloud providers don't bill according to energy consumption. I like Python a lot...

They already do, in the sense that you'll need beefier/more machines to do the same job. Of course, using Python means you have a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick. We have a Python service where we moved ONE ~60 line recursive function to Go and overall CPU consumption dropped to 15-20% of what it used to be.

That sounds pretty damn nice - would you happen to have a good link in mind for reading more on the subject?

Re: Which Programming Languages Use the Least Electricity? (2018)

#160
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United Nations has something like 30 different climate models. Also no one can forecast next month’s weather accurately, much less the weather from 12 years from now. Or do you know of a more accurate forecasting model? Such a model would be extraordinarily useful in agriculture and emergency management, for example.

This is like arguing that the science behind vaccines is invalid because doctors can’t predict when you’re going to catch your next cold. It’s willfully obtuse and has no place on HN.

Climatology is not science. There is no falsifying experiment.
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