| Speed and array operations [message #54602] |
Thu, 21 June 2007 09:33 |
Conor
Messages: 138
Registered: February 2007
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Senior Member |
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I've often wondered about the speed of IDL compared to other
languages. Now, it is my understanding that IDL isn't really a
compiled language (please, correct me if I'm wrong). Although the IDL
interpreter "compiles" and IDL program before you run it, apparently
it isn't compiled all the way down to machine code. As such, I'm
under the impression that natively, IDL is always going to be slower
than a fully compiled language such as C or fortran. However, it
seems to me that there might be case where IDL might still be
quicker. Namely, array operations. My question is, is it possible
for IDL to be faster than a fully compiled language? Are the array
operations in IDL so well optimized that adding together gigantic
arrays in IDL would actually be faster than the equivelent for-loop
style methods you would have to use in fortran or C? Or are C and
fortran always faster? Or do I completely misunderstand how these
languages work?
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