[Beowulf] C vs C++ challenge

[Gerry Creager N5JXS]

Since he's now faculty here, I guess I'll walk down the hall and ask him.

gerry

Matt Valerio wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm an avid C++ programmer myself, and C++ is definitely my choice of the 2
> languages.
> 
> That being said, I think it would be interesting to see what the creator of
> both C and C++ has said about the two.  I ran across this interview with
> Bjorn Stroustrup at
> http://www.phy.duke.edu/brahma/Resources/c++_interview/c++_interview.html.
> 
> Like anything on the internet, it should be taken with a grain of salt.  Can
> anyone vouch for its validity, or is it a hoax to get us to all hate C++ and
> stick with C?
> 
> -Matt
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: beowulf-admin at scyld.com [mailto:beowulf-admin at scyld.com] On Behalf Of
> Jakob Oestergaard
> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 4:36 AM
> To: Beowulf
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] C vs C++ challenge
> 
> On Sun, Feb 01, 2004 at 02:57:37AM -0800, Trent Piepho wrote:
> 
>>>I could easily optimize it more (do the work on a larger buffer at a
>>>once), but I think enough waste heat has been created here.  This is a
>>>simple 2500+ Athlon XP box (nothing fancy) running 2.4.24-pre3.
>>
>>Enough time wasted on finding different solutions to a simple problem?
> 
> Surely
> 
>>not.  Let me toss my hat into the ring:
> 
> ...
> 
> Hi guys!
> 
> Guess who's back - yes, it's your friendly neighborhood language
> evangelist :)
> 
> I said I'd be gone one week - well, I put instant coffe in the
> microwave, and *wooosh* went three weeks ahead in time.
> 
> What a fantastic thread this turned into - awk, perl, more C, java and
> God knows what.  I'm almost surprised I didn't see a Fortran
> implementation.
> 
> See, I was trying to follow up on the challenge, then things got
> complicated (mainly by me not being able to get the performance I wanted
> out of my code) - so instead of flooding your inboxes, I wrote a little
> "article" on my findings.
> 
> It's up at:
>  http://unthought.net/c++/c_vs_c++.html
> 
> Highlights:
>  *) Benchmarks - real numbers.
>  *) A C++'ification of the fast C implementation (that turns out to be
>     negligibly faster than the C implementation although the same
>     algorithm and the same system calls are used), which is generalized
>     and generally made usable as a template library routine (for
>     convenient re-use in other projects - yes, this requires all that
>     boring non-sexy stuff like freeing up memory etc.)
>  *) Two new C++ implementations - another 15 liner that's "only" twice
>     as slow as the C code, and another longer different-algorithm C++
>     implementation that is significantly faster than the fastest C
>     implementation (so far).
> 
> Now, I did not include all the extra implementations presented here. I
> would like to update the document with those, but I will need a little
> feedback from various people.
> 
> First; how do I compile the java implementation?  GCC-3.3.2 gives me
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> [falcon:joe] $ gcj -O3 -march=pentium2 -Wall -o wc-java wordcount.java
> wordcount.java: In class `wordcount':
> wordcount.java: In method `wordcount.main(java.lang.String[])':
> wordcount.java:18: error: Can't find method `split(Ljava/lang/String;)'
> in type `java.util.regex.Pattern'.
>                    words = p.split(s);
>                             ^
> 1 error
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Second; another much faster C implementation was posted - I'd like to
> test against that one as well. I'm curious as to how it was done, and
> I'd like to use it as an example in the document if it turns out that it
> makes sense to write a generic C++ implementation of whatever algorithm
> is used there.  Well, if the code is not a government secret   ;)
> 
> So, well, clearly my document isn't completely updated with all the
> great things from this thread - but at least I think it is a decent
> reply to the mail where the 'programming pearl' C implementation was
> presented.
> 
> I guess this could turn into a nice little reference/FAQ/fact type of
> document - the oppinions stated there are biased of course, but not
> completely unreasonable in my own (biased) oppinion - besides, there's
> real-world numbers for solving a real-world problem, that's a pretty
> good start I would say  :)
> 
> I'd love to hear what people think - if you have the time to give it a
> look.
> 
> Let me know, flame away, give me Fortran code that is faster than my
> 'ego-booster' implementation at the bottom of the document!  ;)
> 
> Cheers all :)
> 
>  / jakob
> 
> BTW: Yes, I had a great vacation;
>    http://unthought.net/avoriaz/p1010050.jpg  ;)
> 
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-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Network Engineering -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.847.8578
Page: 979.228.0173
Office: 903A Eller Bldg, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843

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