Re: The Promise of Forth

Rod Pemberton wrote:

>Well written C can almost match assembly.  But, I usually
>can't out code a C compiler, in assembly, in areas where it's
optimization
>are strong: constant folding and constant propagation.  Although, there
are
>places where C compilers aren't strong and hand coded assembly can
>outperform a compiler.

A few biased opinions:

A really good assembly language programmer will always outperform 
even the best C compilers.

The kind of assembly language programmer that you can actually 
find and hire will, in general, underperform the best C compilers.

If the job is big enough, it may take that good assembly language 
programmer longer than the heat death of the universe to outperform 
the best C compilers.

If the program spends 99% of the time executing 1% of the code,
it is stupid to code the whole thing in assembly.

A good Forth programmer will usually write code that outperforms
the code written by the kind of assembly language programmer that 
you can actually find and hire by doing a better job of factoring.

A really good assembly language programmer knows this and uses
forthlike techniques where appropriate, thus once again coming
out ahead.