5 ms·
It is both nice and concerning, that an ubiquitous element of a ubiquitous language has that much potential for performance optimizations after 19 years of deve
by allendoerfer 12y ago
It is both nice and concerning, that an ubiquitous element of a ubiquitous language has that much potential for performance optimizations after 19 years of development. The optimizations were not even complicated hacks for edge cases, just a simpler implementation overall.
But then again, PHP itself being stateless between requests is quite fast already, nice to see even more performance getting squeezed out. Imagine the decrease in global energy consumption due to this change. :D
- username223 12y ago> a ubiquitous language has that much potential for performance optimizations after 19 years of development. "Code in haste, repent at leisure." PHP was designed with some unholy amalgam of an array and a hash table as its only data structure, so there's plenty of room for repentance. It makes me feel old to remember learning about (singly-) linked lists, arrays, and hash tables, plus some other nice things, in a freshman course called "Introduction to Algorithms and Data Structures." Each had its advantages and disadvantages, and I quickly learned which to choose in which situation. Does this course still exist, or is the modern equivalent "Algorithms and HashArrayLists?"
- allendoerfer 12y agoYou are right. That PHP actually runs is a small wonder. They actually rewrote the engine every few years. When i was in college and visited said lecture, I was quite surprised, what an array actually is. But on the other hand, if it had not been for PHP and its small step from HTML, I imagine many young programmers like me would know neither the false nor the right array.