The End of Native Code?

psycln asks: "An average PC nowadays holds enough power to run complex software programmed in an interpreted language which is handled by runtime virtual machines, or just-in-time compiled. Particular to Windows programmers, the announcement of MS-Windows Vista's system requirements means that future Windows boxes will laugh at the memory/processor requirements of current interpreted/JIT compiled languages (e.g. .NET, Java , Python, and others). Regardless of the negligible performance hit compared to native code, major software houses, as well as a lot of open-source developers, prefer native code for major projects even though interpreted languages are easier to port cross-platform, often have a shorter development time, and are just as powerful as languages that generate native code. What does the Slashdot community think of the current state of interpreted/JIT compiled languages? Is it time to jump in the boat of interpreted/JIT compiled languages? Do programmers feel that they are losing - an arguably needed low-level - control when they do interpreted languages? What would we be losing besides more gray hair?"

Comments

Re:What?!?!?

[tomhudson]

If you want to see a beautiful programming language, how about one that allows one to express code as data?

In assembler, its all code / its all data. The difference is only a JMP away.

One of the neat things was te 4k graphics demo contests - try to write the most impressive graphics demo with only 4k of assembler. There was a LOT of code writing code in memory, code using other code that had already run as raw data for designing the next iteration, then using it again as code ... a 4k program that could take you through a 3-dimensional roller coster ride for 20 minutes, never repeating, all done in real time, on hardware that you wouldn't deign to pick out of the scrap heap.

Re:Have you tried coding anything hard?

[Memnos]

Hmm.. as well. I worked on a team that developed a DB app that was nine PETABYTES and growing constantly. (Our little test database was 60 terabytes.) It will soon be one of the five largest databases in the world, and could extend into the exabyte range (you can guess who it's for.) We use Java and ASP.NET on the server and Java and an AJAX solution on the client. We throw shitloads of big boxes at it and we don't give a damn, because it works. Do not get me started on how analytically complex the algorthms are that use that data...