It's true that computers are really fast. I solve Project Euler puzzles on a pretty old PC, using Python which is an interpreted language, and it's amazing how much "brute force" I can get away with. Test all permutations of the digits 1-9 for primality? Easy.
Computers are fast
51–54 of 54 posts
Re: Computers are fast
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Specifically: SuperFetch, first seen in Vista: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_I/O_technologies#...
Or Unix's mmap, which predates Vista by a couple decades. (It was designed around the time of 4.2BSD, i.e., 1983* .) I'd be shocked if Windows hasn't had a similar mechanism for years, as well. * _The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System_, McKusick et al., p. 29-30.
mmap is not SuperFetch; and memory mapping has been in NT since it started.
What SuperFetch does is collect statistics about files hit by processes when they start up, so it can proactively cache bits of those files, to the point that it can cache files read by processes before those processes are ever started, assuming they are either commonly started or started on a schedule.
Re: Computers are fast
#53Yes. Computers are fast. Who cares about algorithms... Premature optimization is evil... But why then it is so annoying that Visual Studio starts longer than my whole custom linux system in VM on the same computer...
That's very weird. I can launch VS 2010 in < 3 seconds cold on my system. Maybe its a VM thing? VS might always think its launching for the very first time ever on that machine, so it has a lot of heavy duty, one time only things, but on a VM, it does this every time you boot the VM?
I just timed it as well. VS c++ 2008 Express on my super old and slow P4, 5 seconds. And this is the first time I started VS in weeks.
Re: Computers are fast
#54"When in doubt, use brute force." -- Ken Thompson
"If brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough brute force." -- anonymous