Mathematica vs. Executable code
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg15836] Mathematica vs. Executable code
- From: "Ersek, Ted R" <ErsekTR at navair.navy.mil>
- Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 18:39:56 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
A lot of people have the idea that a Mathematica program is typically very slow compared to a compiled program written in C (or a similar language) to do the same thing. I know Mathematica will improve a lot in this regard once the next version (with packed arrays) comes out. I hope someone will demonstrate how the next version of Mathematica compares with compiled programs. I would do it myself, but I have little programming experience with anything but Mathematica. One could take some very number intensive algorithms and implement them using Mathematica and compiled programs. Maybe people at WRI could write the Mathematica implementations, so we know they're efficient. The comparison would only look at the performance using machine precision arithmetic, and would compare speed, memory requirements, and program complexity using the two approaches. In my mind Mathematica is the way to go for very high level programming, symbolic algebra, arbitrary precision arithmetic, exact arithmetic, and graphics. Mathematica also has the advantage in program complexity, program portability and robust numerics (e.g. Exp[2000.0] doesn't give an overflow). What about speed and memory requirements once we get the next version? Maybe Mathematica will still come up short in that area, but by how much? Regards, Ted Ersek