"PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?"
Ooh, ooh, Betteridge's Law of Headlines - http://enwp.org/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines - has the answer: no.
PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#12For scientific computing and data crunching, trying to get the MOST OUT OF THE HARDWARE, I would agree you are wasting resources using a interpreted language, and it is inefficient. But when your goal is first to market, and trying to get the MOST OUT OF THE PROGRAMMERS - it is a waste of human resources, and programmer enjoyment using a compiled language with an unfriendly syntax. Of course, you could find experienc…
But is that not the point of the post - that all the 'easy and cheep' comes at a huge cost to be planet and eventually to the company. Are C# and Java really that much harder to learn and use?
I believe within 20 years, we will have unlimited energy from the sun, and this will not be an issue. I don't know whether an interpreted languages is that much easier, but I do believe that any language that gets people writing code and solving interesting problems quickly can't be too bad a choice.
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#13For scientific computing and data crunching, trying to get the MOST OUT OF THE HARDWARE, I would agree you are wasting resources using a interpreted language, and it is inefficient. But when your goal is first to market, and trying to get the MOST OUT OF THE PROGRAMMERS - it is a waste of human resources, and programmer enjoyment using a compiled language with an unfriendly syntax. Of course, you could find experienc…
But is that not the point of the post - that all the 'easy and cheep' comes at a huge cost to be planet and eventually to the company. Are C# and Java really that much harder to learn and use?
It's trivial to write monstrously inefficient C/C++ - arguably it's even easier than writing slow Python code, because high level concepts like events and callbacks are harder to express programatically and code that should be event-driven becomes:
while (1)
{
// check for input
}
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#14I hate environmentalists. Don't get me wrong, I love the environment, I even call myself a geolibertarian at Mises conferences, but the problem I have with environmentalists is that they think "the world doesn't boil down to dollars and cents" (This was actually said to me).
Let's be very, very generous here and assume that it would take twice as long to code something in C that it would in Python. Let's assume that the code isn't a static library, but something like a web app or equivalent. Doubling the number of developers to get the 10x speed up / 90% reduction in server use is not worth it from an environmental perspective. Those developers use resources to live. They burn fuel to heat their dinner. They drive their car to work.
These types of arguments are trying to make an emotional plea to a perceived market failure. The solution is to fix the market, not waste time implementing stuff in C. Tax pollution at the rate at which it would take to clean it up and the market will automatically allocate resources efficiently.
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of bench marks showing 10 to 100 times is in the ball part. Computers use masses of power because there are so many of them. As they get more efficient, their numbers increase. The benefit of using faster languages is constant irrespective of the efficiency of the machine on which it is running. How can wasting energy be OK? Even if you don't think it has climate change effects, it has economic and e…
I wouldn't say its OK to waste energy but you have to put things in perspective. Your first concern should be to save the users time. The less time they have to use the program to achieve their goal means less instructions. Videos like these aren't looking at the bigger picture.
If code runs faster then the user time is wasted less as well. That seems in alignment with the ideas behind the video.
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#16I hate environmentalists. Don't get me wrong, I love the environment, I even call myself a geolibertarian at Mises conferences, but the problem I have with environmentalists is that they think "the world doesn't boil down to dollars and cents" (This was actually said to me). Let's be very, very generous here and assume that it would take twice as long to code something in C that it would in Python. Let's assume that…
You shoot down our own argument. The video suggest C# and Java as alternatives to interpreted languages. By picking C you are deliberately trying to make your argument sound stronger than it is. The video also mentions the economic cost.
From an economics point of view you are just wrong. Because of the vast numbers of computers used in 'scale out' architectures the impact of code efficiency is enormously bigger than the cost of developers. If a developer's code runs on 10 or 100 machines then you are correct. But modern software runs on hundreds or even hundreds of thousand machines.
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
But is that not the point of the post - that all the 'easy and cheep' comes at a huge cost to be planet and eventually to the company. Are C# and Java really that much harder to learn and use?
It's trivial to write monstrously inefficient C/C++ - arguably it's even easier than writing slow Python code, because high level concepts like events and callbacks are harder to express programatically and code that should be event-driven becomes: while (1) { // check for input } And no offense to the TFA, but all the academic code I've seen is buggy, slow, and inefficient - hardly using "every ounce of efficiency".…
You have not been looking at scientific computing. Matlab is more something people used for comp-sci of math. If it was not FORTRAN then it was not scientific computing.
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
But is that not the point of the post - that all the 'easy and cheep' comes at a huge cost to be planet and eventually to the company. Are C# and Java really that much harder to learn and use?
I believe within 20 years, we will have unlimited energy from the sun, and this will not be an issue. I don't know whether an interpreted languages is that much easier, but I do believe that any language that gets people writing code and solving interesting problems quickly can't be too bad a choice.
Unfortunately - right now - we do not have unlimited energy. If we did - then the argument simply shifts to the limited mineral resources we have to make the computers...
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of bench marks showing 10 to 100 times is in the ball part. Computers use masses of power because there are so many of them. As they get more efficient, their numbers increase. The benefit of using faster languages is constant irrespective of the efficiency of the machine on which it is running. How can wasting energy be OK? Even if you don't think it has climate change effects, it has economic and e…
I wouldn't say its OK to waste energy but you have to put things in perspective. Your first concern should be to save the users time. The less time they have to use the program to achieve their goal means less instructions. Videos like these aren't looking at the bigger picture.
[deleted]
Re: PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't say its OK to waste energy but you have to put things in perspective. Your first concern should be to save the users time. The less time they have to use the program to achieve their goal means less instructions. Videos like these aren't looking at the bigger picture.
If code runs faster then the user time is wasted less as well. That seems in alignment with the ideas behind the video.
I don't want to hear the "faster programs save the user time too" argument its total BS. the vast majority of CPU time is spent waiting for the user. So while you're on a holy quest maximizing 100,000 instructions down to 1,000, every second that the user wastes dealing with your neglected UI 1,000,000,000 cycles are wasted (and that's on a machine with a single 1ghz processor).