[GRLUG] sysadmin job opening

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Mon, 2010-02-01 at 10:01 -0500, Bob Kline wrote:
> Uhmmm,  isn't execution speed and
> coding speed the usual tradeoff with
> high level languages?  A shell script
> can get small things done in a hurry.
> No one expects it to execute fast.  Or
> should anyway.

Once upon a time;  these days, for most use-cases, the difference is
pretty minimal.  But PHP performance in many cases is *BAD*, as in
terrible, as in minutes vs. seconds.

> Isn't it usually the case that one 
> needs a compiled version of high
> level code before the speed improves?
> As in an order of magnitude and more?

No.  It might be true if that 'low-level' code was always optimal, but
it isn't.  So while maybe true in some theoretical sense this simply is
not true in reality.

> High level languages keep people 
> from having to learn things like assembly
> language and "C,"  reduce expensive 
> labor costs, and exploit cheaper, faster
> hardware, but I'd of thought that it was
> clear what the price of them is.  
> They are relatively slow. You never get
> it all.

With current optimizing aot runtimes this is simply no longer true.