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Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

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Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#281

Post by welder »

paxcoder wrote: post #212
exDM69 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The syntax of a language is about the least interesting thing about them. I don't care about curly braces, end keywords or semicolons as long as it is consistent (and fairly easy to parse, so there can be good tooling). The interesting parts are in the semantics, type systems and runtime features. Choosing a programming language based on the syntax is like choosing your significant other based on looks alone. You're…

I've heard this said numerous times, so I'm going to disagree on the record. I think syntax of a programming language is a very important characteristic. A language with a nice syntax is easier to learn, easier to read and understand, and delightful to write. Crystal's syntax is a great differentiator between it and its statically typed, garbage-collecting competition.

Exactly! I guess people used to the Ruby syntax are just desensitized or don't know how much of a joy programming can be without having to type 'end' everywhere.

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#282

Post by igouy »

rogerdpack wrote: post #229
JohnStrange wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem with GC, but I want to see reasonably complicated benchmarks that actually show that it's "fast as C". Because I don't believe that at all.

Are you saying the GC is as fast as C? I bet it's not. That being said, the programs I've built in crystal "feel" very fast, here are a few random performance tests, if you're asking about overall performance: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/crystal-l... https://crystal-lang.org/2016/07/15/fibonacci-benchmark.html

"but I want to see reasonably complicated benchmarks"

I very much doubt that a fib code-snippet is what he was asking about.

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#283

Post by pjmlp »

tyoverby wrote: post #267
kminehart wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, Go has an excellent garbage collector, and really seems to fill the niche for low-level libraries and programs. It's also quite a joy to program in, and I'm a JavaScript developer, so I'm coming from the other side of the spectrum.

I'd argue that Go is much closer to Javascript than it is to C/C++.

I think Niklaus Wirth would disagree.

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#284

Post by igouy »

wott wrote: post #184
bluetomcat wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these "fast as C" claims about modern, high-level Python-like languages (be they statically typed and natively compiled) are missing the point. It is mostly the minimalistic and terse programming style that C encourages that makes C programs performant. You avoid allocations wherever possible, you write your own custom allocators and memory pools for frequently allocated objects, you avoid copying stuff as muc…

> All of these "fast as C" claims about modern, high-level Python-like languages (be they statically typed and natively compiled) are missing the point. It is mostly the minimalistic and terse programming style that C encourages that makes C programs performant. You avoid allocations wherever possible, you write your own custom allocators and memory pools for frequently allocated objects, you avoid copying stuff as m…

> I have a small test program I port to different languages

Please show one or more of those programs.

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#285

Post by netghost »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #25
clessg wrote: post #4

Looks very nice. I hope it gains momentum. For now, if you want a fast language with the beauty and productivity of Ruby, check out Elixir [0] and its web framework, Phoenix [1]. I've been using Phoenix for a year, and it's the first framework that I've actually liked more over time. And I've been a web developer for a decade. With its recent 1.0 release, Phoenix is gaining a lot of momentum. If you want some idea of…

Elixir gets plugged so often in other-language threads - whether it's Julia or Ruby or, like here, Crystal - that if it wasn't FOSS I'd have decided it's being astroturfed. I guess it's a good thing that people like it so much, but it's really starting to feel marketing-y by now.

Perhaps it's time to pick a new language to drop in every thread. Something hip and cool, like HyperTalk!

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#287

Post by pjmlp »

lomnakkus wrote: post #142
adrianN wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those kinds of systems won't get compilers for something other than C/C++ or maybe Ada for a long time. Usually you're stuck with a compiler from the chip vendor that kinda-sorta supports C.

Indeed, and you'll probably also need a special-purpose RT OS stack (or have to write your own/go without). EDIT: I'd also add that this is such a niche[1] area of programming that expecting any mainstream language to meaningfully support it is... optimisitic and that mainstream languages shouldn't try to support it. (Soft real-time may be reasonable, but I believe that can be achieved with GC as demonstrated by the…

Special versions of Java also get into this niche. Check the PTC Java compilers or Websphere Real Time one from IBM.

Before Aonix got bought by PTC they had a few contracts for weapons control for missiles and battle cruisers.

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#288

Post by quotemstr »

If you require the use of a GC, you can never be as "fast as C" in the general case, since there will always be specific cases where manual memory management will do something more efficient than what an automatic GC would have done --- just like a car with an automatic transmission can never be quite as efficient as a car with a manual transmission used competently.

If you want to talk about efficient GCed languages, you have many choices, most of which have more tooling and mindshare advantages than you language has tooling advantages.

Really, GCed languages are commodities these days. A lot of people have put a lot of work into the fundamental building blocks, and now people are just combining them in various ways.

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#289

Post by lmm »

kminehart wrote: post #211
krzat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want non-GC language because everyone already has GC language that their are comfortable with. So basically C/C++ replacement is the only niche that is left to fill. It would be even better if new language could replace even GC-languages, so I can can write fast low level libraries or websites in single language, without sacrificing productivity. That would be the Holy Grail I guess.

On the other hand, Go has an excellent garbage collector, and really seems to fill the niche for low-level libraries and programs. It's also quite a joy to program in, and I'm a JavaScript developer, so I'm coming from the other side of the spectrum.

Have you ever used a language with a decent type system though? I couldn't stand to use Javascript or Go at this point.

Re: Crystal: Fast as C, Slick as Ruby

#290

Post by pjmlp »

anp wrote: post #262
koffiezet wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked in environments where GC was an absolute "no go", I'm always amazed that so many people have problems with a GC. Yes there are types of software where using a GC'd language would probably be a bad thing. If you're talking about huge projects with heavy performance constraints (os kernels, AAA games and browsers come to mind), I would probably try to avoid it. But most likely - you simply do not need a l…

> But most likely - you simply do not need a language without a GC. Absolutely. That doesn't mean I can't want predictable performance or deterministic destruction. I also think it's a shame that we waste so much electricity and rare earth minerals on keeping ourselves from screwing up (i.e. on the overhead of managed runtimes and GCs). Before, I'd have argued that it was just necessary. Having spent a bunch of time…

The C++ advantage will not be so much after Java 10 comes out and finally have the value types and reified generics the language should have had since beginning.

Also I am yet to see any large scale production deployment of those Hadoop alternatives.

But it might still be like 5 years from now, so who knows how it will evolve.

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