the large file challenge

[Richard Gaskin]

Sadhunathan Nadesan wrote:

> I think it has come to light that MC holds it's own with compiled
> languages.  That was where this whole thing began, I was explaining
> to Swami that MC is not a compiled language, then Scott kinda said, so
> what, there is not that much difference between compiled and interpreted
> languages these days.  That would be supported by the results of the
> timing tests, so I'd have to agree with Scott.  However, I'm still
> sticking to my guns - MC is not a compiled language.

Maybe we need a new name for what Transcript does.

Transcript pre-processes scripts into pointer-based bytecode, which
generally outperforms purely interpreted xTalk by anywhere from several
times to a few orders of magnitude.

Sun calls their arguably less-efficient form of bytecode "compiled", and
make no bones that they're only "compiling" for a virtual machine.  In that
sense, "compiled" seems the more appropriate term.

Yet Transcript does not store its bytecode, so there is one pass of pure
interpretation to create the bytecode when an object first loads. So in that
sense, "interpreted" seems the more appropriate term.

:\

Erring on the side of underselling, I prefer "tokenized".  But that makes
for useless marketing copy since it takes several paragraphs to explain what
"tokenized" means for the general public.

There's also a good case for just calling it "interpreted" without the
unnecessary apology, given the benefits of scripting for the sorts of tasks
one is likely to use Rev for.  But communicating those benefits takes even
more explanation; Osterhout wrote the single clearest paper on the subject
I've seen yet, but few have read
<http://dev.scriptics.com/doc/scripting.html>, and you'd have to remind
people to mentally replace "TCL" with "Rev" when reading it.  Moreover, the
strength of the argument there appeals primarily to those with experience in
both 3GLs and 4GLs, and would be lost on most non-geeks (I'm writing a
version of Osterhaut's argument focusing on Transcript the way he focuses on
TCL, but it'll be a little while before it's finished; gotta ship a few
products first).

Maybe we should just call Transcript "fast". :)

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
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