Re:Anic: Faster than C, safer than Java, simpler than *sh
by KirinDave on Sunday January 10, 2010 @11:53AM
(#1043281)
Not really so much. You just target an area where C is not very good and you can do it. For bulk threaded stuff using lots of I/O, Java can be "faster than C." For extremely distributed code, Erlang can be "faster than C."
These claims leverage the fact that the fastest implementation in C is incredibly difficult to write. Usually we discard that difficulty when comparing languages, but as time goes on the costs of developing specific distributed, multi-threaded, and/or reliable systems in pure C becomes so outrageous that it stops making sense to ignore, so we start comparing against less correct implementations.
These claims leverage the fact that the fastest implementation in C is incredibly difficult to write. Usually we discard that difficulty when comparing languages, but as time goes on the costs of developing specific distributed, multi-threaded, and/or reliable systems in pure C becomes so outrageous that it stops making sense to ignore, so we start comparing against less correct implementations.