[computer-go] Java hounds salivate over this:

[Don Dailey]

On Fri, 2007-06-15 at 21:09 -0700, Brian Slesinsky wrote:
> On 6/15/07, Don Dailey <drdailey at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> > These arguments are based on the assumption that the human can't do as
> > well as the computer for certain tasks.   A custom designed memory
> > manager by a person who knows what he is doing will be faster than an
> > automatic generalized algorithm and assembler code written by a human
> > who actually knows what he is doing will always be faster than C code
> > written by a compiler.
> >
> > Of course the big variable here is how many programmers have the
> > expertise to out-code the compiler.   These statements are probably
> > mostly true for most people and most programs.
> 
> Well, it's not just a matter of skill.  There is also the question of
> what the code will look like after the assembly language expert is
> done.  Sure, a person can inline, unroll loops, do common
> subexpression elimination, and all the other tricks that compilers can
> do.  But if you do that at the source code level, what do you do when
> you want to change something?  It's a dead end.

Yes, of course.  I'm not claiming it's always desirable but I'm claiming
the basic argument is a bit of a lie.  

- Don





> (On the other hand, what could a good programmer do with an
> application-specific code generator using something like LLVM?)
> 
> - Brian
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