On May 26, 2008, at 11:53 AM, Bob Mottram wrote:
On Linux the performance of 3D distributed particle SLAM (a CPU intensive task) running on the Mono .NET (version 2) runtime is marginally faster than the same code running on Windows using the MS runtime, but only by a few milliseconds. Performance benchmarks are very similar to the same algorithms written in C++ and compiled with gcc.
Thankfully, I do not think anyone is really arguing performance differences. It is mostly seems to be about development environments and portability. Every language can get the job done reasonably well these days. For example, while Java itself is an ugly re-imagining of C ++, several other programming languages have been ported to the virtual machine and seamlessly integrated into Java, similar to .NET. It is six of one and a half dozen of the other.
The advantages being advertised for C# (i.e. new functional programming features) only apply to .NET 3 or above, which isn't available on GNU/Linux systems and so is of no interest to me at this point.
That's the real issue here as I see it. Unix-like systems still dominate the server market broadly, and a lot of people primarily develop for that market. Despite the efforts of Mono, .NET seems to be permanently marginalized as a Windows-only environment. The ubiquity of Windows on the desktop does not translate into ubiquity as a development target. For many types of very technical development that may be very relevant here, Unix is overwhelmingly the real-world development target and where you will want to pull your developers from.
Arguments about programming languages are a popular topic on AI forums, but usually generate more heat than light.
Yup. Programming language selection is largely irrelevant to producing AI, and is secondary to other practical concerns. If programming language made a material difference, we'd already have AI.
Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=103754539-40ed26 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
