Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!hcr!jonathan
From: jonathan@hcr.UUCP (Jonathan Fischer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Efficiency of C++ relative to C??
Message-ID: <2189@hcr.UUCP>
Date: 26 Sep 89 15:47:29 GMT
References: <16493@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <9924@alice.UUCP> <4102@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: jonathan@hcrvx1.UUCP (Jonathan Fischer)
Organization: HCR Corporation, Toronto
Lines: 22

In article <4102@pegasus.ATT.COM> psrc@pegasus.UUCP writes:
>I think some studies were done (don't ask me for references) where
>someone re-wrote a C program in C++; the result was a faster program.
>This isn't a particularly good experiment (you need to have someone
>re-write the same application in C, to see what the effects of
>re-writing are, as opposed to the effects of C++).

	Yes indeed, the latest Usenix C++ conference proceedings has a
paper describing just the above.  (By latest (?) I mean early '89).  I've
lost the address & phone number, but you can order it from Usenix for
$20, I believe.  It seems to me that it was a pretty reasonable experiment,
in that they took a program, "objectified" it, even w/ virtual functions et al,
and compared the execution.  I don't think, therefore, that the effects of
rewriting the application are unwanted side effects in the experiment, since
the only changes, as far as I recall, were the objectificationalisming.

	I read the thing on the subway about 6 months ago, so I welcome any
corrections.
-- 
Jonathan Fischer			| "Break his little legs,
HCR, Toronto, Ontario, Canada		| will you honey?" 
					|		-- Calvin's Father