Re: octave loop slowness (was "")

[Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso]

I'm going to respond to Shay Ayal, John W. Eaton, and  Søren Hauberg
in the same message.

On 3/18/06, Shai Ayal <address@hidden> wrote:
> Please try to use a descriptive subject line when posting to this list.

Sorry. I usually do put subject lines, but I simply forgot in this
instance (and I'm surprised at myself that I did).

> I think the overall conclusion is the JIT is very hard to do and octave
> project, which relies on volunteers, does not currently have the
> manpower to do it. Maybe you can help?

It's been a while since I've touched Java. I don't think I can help. :-(



On 3/18/06, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 17-Mar-2006, Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso wrote:
>
> | So, I'm interested to know, any idea why this is happening? Why would
> | a simple for loop with no code to execute except running through all
> | the values of its iterator take orders of magnitude more in Octave
> | than in Matlab?
>
> I can think of a few possibilities:
>
>   * because Octave's author only knows how to write a naive
>     interpreter and is too busy with other tasks to spend a lot of
>     time improving the interpreter (do you have a better one?)

Aha. So it is an issue with the interpreter? This was my real
question. To someone who complained to me about the slowness of
Octave, I said that most of those problems could be alleviated by
using the C++ library instead and compiling. I'm glad to know that at
least in this much I wasn't lying.

No, I wish I had a better interpreter, but I don't. :-(

>   * people who have paid actual money for Octave's development have
>     cared more about features, correct results, and the fact that
>     Octave is freely available than speed (which has apparently been
>     good enough for them)

By the way, who are these people?

> Now, what can you do about it?  Would you like to help, or just
> complain?

I'm sorry. I would love to help too. I wasn't actually complaining
about its slowness, just lamenting how much it hurts me to listen this
sort of critique about Octave. The project is dear to me and I would
love to see it succeed. I don't have money that I can offer, and I
doubt I have the technical skill required to write a better
interpreter for it.



On 3/18/06, Søren Hauberg <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'm guessing most people using Octave aren't interpreter wizards, they
> are just people who care about their data. But couldn't FSF (or is it
> GNU) be helpful here?

That's an interesting thought! Do you know how to go about the
formalities of asking the FSF to help?

- JGH



-------------------------------------------------------------
Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Octave's home on the web:  http://www.octave.org
How to fund new projects:  http://www.octave.org/funding.html
Subscription information:  http://www.octave.org/archive.html
-------------------------------------------------------------