Java > Scala

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday, December 02, 2011 05:18:15 Patrick Stewart wrote:
> Russel Winder Wrote:
> | CPython is written in C but PyPy is written in RPython (*).  PyPy is
> | about 5 times faster than CPython on most of the performance benchmarks
> | CPython has.
> 
> CPython is the main implementation and first Python that cameo out. It is
> still bleeding edge. I think that counts as a big win for C.
> | Wasn't the latest Perl initially written in Haskell?
> 
> And Haskell in C?
> 
> Besides, any compiler capable of bootstrapping itself has to be written in
> some other language at the beginning.
> 
> It just makes me laugh when I see statement written from people using
> language Y, whose implementation (or even worse - whose interpreter or VM)
> is written in language X: "Y is faster than X!" or "X is crap and
> outdated!". It is just a load of BS.

Really what it comes down to is that many languages are geared more towards 
something other than performance - e.g. programmer productivity - so they're 
not really performant enough to really be the best choice for a compiler. And 
in some cases, they just don't have the features that it takes. But they're 
still useful for many programming tasks and are therefore well-worth using in 
those circumstances.

However, it's certainly short-sighted to say that language Y is better than X 
at performance when language X is needed in order to implement language Y. At 
best, language Y is generally better for many tasks due to features other than 
performance and therefore obsoletes language X for many tasks. But there's no 
way that a language that isn't performant enough to actually implement a 
compiler in is going to fully replace those which _are_ that performant.

- Jonathan M Davis