4 ms·

Which of those is actually formally specified? Also, calling Python or JavaScript any effieicnt sounds a bit unwarranted. Consider any JavaScript desktop applic

by d33 7y ago

Which of those is actually formally specified? Also, calling Python or JavaScript any effieicnt sounds a bit unwarranted. Consider any JavaScript desktop application, its power and memory usage... it's a mess.

anchpop 7y ago
> Consider any JavaScript desktop application, its power and memory usage... it's a mess. I'm running VSCode right now with many tabs open and extensions running, and it's using less than 100mb of memory. Doesn't seem so bad to me
- diego_moita 7y ago
  > using less than 100mb of memory. Doesn't seem so bad to me You know... any embedded programmer reading that comment is probably laughing hysterically. In most cheap or energy efficient microcontrolers, more than 4 Mb is considered a luxury.
  - lispm 7y ago
    A friend of mine has been developing a small Lisp which starts at 2Kbytes RAM: http://www.ulisp.com http://www.ulisp.com
  - airza 7y ago
    I mean sure, but he's talking about desktop applications.
  - Const-me 7y ago
    Depends on the exact numbers. For instance, Allwinner R328 chip has 2 ARM cores running up to 1.2GHz, includes 64MB or 128MB RAM, and the price is around $3.
  - UncleMeat 7y ago
    Ok. There is no virtue in using less memory for the sake of it. If a desktop application is taking 100mb, you can have a lot of those running before modern boxes start to struggle.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - mntmoss 7y ago
    Whether 100Mb usage is unacceptably large is mostly dependent on the precise features in play: * 32-bit vs 64-bit application(64 bit will bloat all pointers) * Methods of loading and editing documents(modern editing attempts a lot of introspection based on highlighting syntax or project environment) * Character encoding support(Supporting current Unicode rendering would almost immediately take you beyond 4Mb) Interactive editing is a pretty memory-hungry task compared to a simple viewer or batch processor. There's more reason to keep things cached. If you actually go back to old text editor versions from the days of 4Mb desktops, you'll find yourself missing stuff. Not so much that you can't get by, but enough to give pause and consider taking the hit.
- LandR 7y ago
  100 mb to edit text seems not great...
  - archie2 7y ago
    VS Code does a lot more than "edit text" even out of the box with no extensions.
  - evilduck 7y ago
    Have you ever installed enough Vim or Emacs plugins to reach feature parity and then looked at memory usage? VS Code is doing a fine job.
- doublement 7y ago
  ~100,000,000 bytes! That's a lot of "state".
- rvanmil 7y ago
  Are you sure you didn’t forget to count all the electron helper processes as well?
- jcelerier 7y ago
  > I'm running VSCode right now with many tabs open and extensions running, and it's using less than 100mb of memory. Doesn't seem so bad to me uh... is it ? no tabs open and less than 12 extensions, the code process itself takes 120 megabytes, and there's also 1.2 gigabyte of electron processes running along with it
Const-me 7y ago
> Which of those is actually formally specified? Many of them are international standards, see ANSI INCITS 226-1994 for LISP, ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262 for JavaScript, ECMA-334 and ISO/IEC 23270:2018 for C#. Lua and Python aren’t standardized, but even so, they both have a comprehensive formal spec. > calling Python or JavaScript any efficient sounds a bit unwarranted Both are much slower at number crunching compared to C or C++ but they aren’t that bad, either. Most JavaScript VMs feature a good JIT compiler. Some Python runtimes have JIT too. > Consider any JavaScript desktop application, its power and memory usage. There’re good ones, like VSCode. On average they’re indeed not great, but I think it’s just an unfortunate consequence of low entry barrier. It’s easy for inexperience people to get started with the technology. And the ecosystem is misjudged based on the output of these inexperienced developers.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Python is actually scary fast because anybody that uses it for serious numerical work will use numpy.
  - jkoudys 7y ago
    ie "python is scary fast because anyone who uses it is mostly running C"
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Yep. This goes for a lot of environments. It's going to take many many decades to get rid of C. Probably more than it has been here up to now.
      - jkoudys 7y ago
        Doesn't always mean it's particularly performant, unfortunately. The JSON lib in PHP is still C (part of Zend), but it's very susceptible to malloc failures (one big contiguous request for the whole shebang), and it's generally way faster to serialize arrays into a .PHP file you load than into JSON if you're storing it locally. I compared what I read there to the serde stuff for rust and the difference is stark. Maybe having most of this stuff in c libs with scripts wrapped around them will make it easier to migrate. Keep the same py but swap out the lib from C to some rust that's still useful in a crate for pure rust projects.

by d33 7y ago

anchpop 7y ago

> Consider any JavaScript desktop application, its power and memory usage... it's a mess. I'm running VSCode right now with many tabs open and extensions running, and it's using less than 100mb of memory. Doesn't seem so bad to me

diego_moita 7y ago
> using less than 100mb of memory. Doesn't seem so bad to me You know... any embedded programmer reading that comment is probably laughing hysterically. In most cheap or energy efficient microcontrolers, more than 4 Mb is considered a luxury.
- lispm 7y ago
  A friend of mine has been developing a small Lisp which starts at 2Kbytes RAM: http://www.ulisp.com http://www.ulisp.com
- airza 7y ago
  I mean sure, but he's talking about desktop applications.
- Const-me 7y ago
  Depends on the exact numbers. For instance, Allwinner R328 chip has 2 ARM cores running up to 1.2GHz, includes 64MB or 128MB RAM, and the price is around $3.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  Ok. There is no virtue in using less memory for the sake of it. If a desktop application is taking 100mb, you can have a lot of those running before modern boxes start to struggle.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- mntmoss 7y ago
  Whether 100Mb usage is unacceptably large is mostly dependent on the precise features in play: * 32-bit vs 64-bit application(64 bit will bloat all pointers) * Methods of loading and editing documents(modern editing attempts a lot of introspection based on highlighting syntax or project environment) * Character encoding support(Supporting current Unicode rendering would almost immediately take you beyond 4Mb) Interactive editing is a pretty memory-hungry task compared to a simple viewer or batch processor. There's more reason to keep things cached. If you actually go back to old text editor versions from the days of 4Mb desktops, you'll find yourself missing stuff. Not so much that you can't get by, but enough to give pause and consider taking the hit.
LandR 7y ago
100 mb to edit text seems not great...
- archie2 7y ago
  VS Code does a lot more than "edit text" even out of the box with no extensions.
- evilduck 7y ago
  Have you ever installed enough Vim or Emacs plugins to reach feature parity and then looked at memory usage? VS Code is doing a fine job.
doublement 7y ago
~100,000,000 bytes! That's a lot of "state".
rvanmil 7y ago
Are you sure you didn’t forget to count all the electron helper processes as well?
jcelerier 7y ago
> I'm running VSCode right now with many tabs open and extensions running, and it's using less than 100mb of memory. Doesn't seem so bad to me uh... is it ? no tabs open and less than 12 extensions, the code process itself takes 120 megabytes, and there's also 1.2 gigabyte of electron processes running along with it

Const-me 7y ago

> Which of those is actually formally specified? Many of them are international standards, see ANSI INCITS 226-1994 for LISP, ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262 for JavaScript, ECMA-334 and ISO/IEC 23270:2018 for C#. Lua and Python aren’t standardized, but even so, they both have a comprehensive formal spec. > calling Python or JavaScript any efficient sounds a bit unwarranted Both are much slower at number crunching compared to C or C++ but they aren’t that bad, either. Most JavaScript VMs feature a good JIT compiler. Some Python runtimes have JIT too. > Consider any JavaScript desktop application, its power and memory usage. There’re good ones, like VSCode. On average they’re indeed not great, but I think it’s just an unfortunate consequence of low entry barrier. It’s easy for inexperience people to get started with the technology. And the ecosystem is misjudged based on the output of these inexperienced developers.

jacquesm 7y ago
Python is actually scary fast because anybody that uses it for serious numerical work will use numpy.
- jkoudys 7y ago
  ie "python is scary fast because anyone who uses it is mostly running C"
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Yep. This goes for a lot of environments. It's going to take many many decades to get rid of C. Probably more than it has been here up to now.
    - jkoudys 7y ago
      Doesn't always mean it's particularly performant, unfortunately. The JSON lib in PHP is still C (part of Zend), but it's very susceptible to malloc failures (one big contiguous request for the whole shebang), and it's generally way faster to serialize arrays into a .PHP file you load than into JSON if you're storing it locally. I compared what I read there to the serde stuff for rust and the difference is stark. Maybe having most of this stuff in c libs with scripts wrapped around them will make it easier to migrate. Keep the same py but swap out the lib from C to some rust that's still useful in a crate for pure rust projects.