On average, how efficient is a scripting engine? [closed] - performance

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Closed 11 years ago.
When dealing with a scripting engine, I'd expect them to be fractions slower than code compiled to assembly. What sort of efficiency numbers are there for major scripting languages (if any)?
Or is this a futile question?
Thanks.

Go to http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ for actual numbers.
As you can see, languages that are usually compiled (i.e. C, C++, etc.) destroy interpreted languages in terms of performance (both running time and memory).
But the question is odd.
Any scripting language can be made compilable into native code (i.e. assembly) and vice versa (e.g. HipHop: PHP to C++ compiler).
And language aside, some compilers are much better than others because they know how to optimize the code to run faster natively. And they also differ between single-core and multi-core systems.
So if I can take a guess... if you're making a decision on what language to use based on performance (especially... ESPECIALLY if you're talking about scripting languages), you're probably making a mistake. There are many more considerations beyond performance that impact on selection of a programming language for a project.
If I guessed wrong, sorry!

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VHDL for scientific computing [closed]

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Closed 10 years ago.
I was wondering if folks use VHDL/FPGAs in scientific computing.
An example scenario that I was thinking off was say:
Construct an arbitrary precision floating point adder
Configure an FPGA board to then add such numbers
So I was looking for references (example code) where VHDL/FPGAs have been used in scientific computing.
Thanks in advance.
There are several vendors who build heterogeneous computing systems using FPGAs. I doubt you'll find complete source code for such systems.
SRC Computing
Convey Computer
Mitrionics. A reseller of other systems.
Novo-G. An academic project.
Look into radio astronomy. With arrays such as the VLA and ALMA, the massively parallel correlator is the part that could be considered most important. These typically use FPGAs but could use custom-designed chips for extreme performance at higher cost.
Some fine reading:
https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/cdl/digital-signal-processing
http://web.njit.edu/~gary/728/Lecture8.html

How to optimize F# programs generally [closed]

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Closed 11 years ago.
I have an interpreter for a lisp-style language in F#, and have just gotten into the optimization phase. Simple tests of the evaluator reveal that I need to optimize it in an extreme manner. However, I don't have a general background in F# performance or optimization.
Are there any good general knowledge resources for F# program optimization? Particularly useful are tips of keeping cache coherency and surprising primitive performance issues. A cursory search hasn't revealed much on the internet.
Thank you!
Performance optimization tricks are all myths. As #svick said, it's no better way than profiling your program, identifying hot spots and optimizing them using concrete benchmarks.
Since you asked, here is some information floating around:
A bunch of good answers about F# performance: C# / F# Performance comparison
Using inline for performance optimization: Use of `inline` in F#
Using structs instead of records for better performance: http://theburningmonk.com/2011/10/fsharp-performance-test-structs-vs-records/
Array-oriented programming for performance-critical code: http://sharp-gamedev.blogspot.com/2010/03/thoughts-about-f-and-xbox-games.html
Concrete case studies of performance optimization:
FSharp runs my algorithm slower than Python
F# seems slower than other languages... what can I do to speed it up?

Cortical learning implementation (Numenta's HTM theory) [closed]

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Closed 11 years ago.
Has anyone tried to implement Numenta's most recent cortical learning theory (http://www.numenta.com)? I'm working on it and would like to share experience.
I think the ideas from Numeta are very promising. But as with any company that wants to make money they are not verbose enough about the technology so that one should be able to re-implement their system (at least from what I have seen so far). It is probably not in their interest that one could just rebuild the system from which they plan to make money.
Also their system is very general and complex. So unless you have a lot of experience with other kinds of neural networks and learning algorithms, I would not recommend experimenting with their ideas. First try to do Backpropagation and maybe some of the less advanced temporal learning until you are really familiar with that.

Most useful parallel programming algorithm? [closed]

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Closed 12 years ago.
I recenty asked a question about parallel programming algorithms which was closed quite fast due to my bad ability to communicate my intent:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2407631/what-is-the-most-useful-parallel-programming-algorithm-closed
I had also recently asked another question, specifically:
Is MapReduce just a generalisation of another programming principle?
The other question was specifically about map reduce and to see if mapreduce was a more specific version of some other concept in parallel programming. This question (about a useful parallel programming algorithm) is more about the whole series of algorithms for parallel programming. You will have to excuse me though as I am quite new to parallel programming, so maybe MapReduce or something that is a more general form of mapreduce is the "only" parallel programming construct which is available, in which case I apologise for my ignorance.
There's probably two "main" parallel programming constructs.
Map/Reduce is one. At a high, ultra-generic level, it's just parallel divide-and-conquer. Send out the individual bits to parallel handlers, and combine the results when they arrive.
The other main parallel programming construct is the pipeline... pieces of work go through a series of stages, each of which can be run in a parallel thread.
I think that just about any parallelization algorithm is going to boil down to one of those two. I could be wrong, of course.

What are the main C / C++ specifications [closed]

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Closed 13 years ago.
After there was a misunderstanding of "C/C++ programmers" with the a non-mentioned/existing "C/C++ language", and eventually getting the question closed, I decided to void it.
I had voted to delete it, and planned to split the question in two (C language specification, compilers and their version diffs, and C++ language specs, compilers and their version diffs), but it turns out a question with (ill formed) answers can't be deleted.
That was a big turn off for my SO experience... can't reformfulate a wrongly-closed ill-answered question... ouch.
There is no such thing as the "C/C++" language. The two have completely different language standards and differ in use in many, many ways. If you want to understand either C or C++ I suggest (and this is true for any language);
read a book authored by one of the originators of the language. For C this would be Kernighan and Ritchie 2nd Ed, and for C++, Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language, 3rd Ed.
when you are comfortable with the language, get a copy of the language standard.
And can I also say that in all my time using the internet, I've never found an online resource for C++ that could approach the quality of the available paper documentation.
Wikipedia's articles on C and C++ have good references.
The ISO C working group would be a good start: http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG14/. But it's pretty hard to find anything on there.

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