Languages, platforms, paradigms and speed
Ever since the latest round of Ruby benchmarks came out and everyone got all excited, I got to thinking about the overall discussion about languages and the interpreted vs. compiled debate. To be fair, there will always be those who take a specific side for some small-but-important-to-them reason yet this has not stopped so many projects from bridging the gap, albeit with varying degrees of success. In many instances, it comes down to the different approaches taken by various language themselves and the payoffs they offer.
In my investigation, I came across some very enlightening sources of information on the overall discussion of language speed, code optimization and the tension between different paradigms. Please peruse the following:
- Compiling and Optimizing Scripting Languages – Google Tech Talk by one of the maintainers of phc, the PHP compiler.
- Compiling Dynamic Languages – Another Google Tech Talk focusing on optimization of Python.
- What To Know Before Debating Type Systems – From the neo-classics department, this essay by Chris Smith helped me gain a great deal of perspective with respect to type systems
- LLVM stuff – Google Tech Talk about LLVM 2.0, tons of LLVM-related papers and presentations
- A formally verified compiler back-end – Paper by Xavier Leroy that was too long for me to finish
Something missing from this list?
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