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:On the subject of loosers...

[EvanED]

It's usually USians who get these things wrong, of course. Those I've talked to really don't seem to care much and explain it away as "evolution of the language".

I guess there's an argument there somewhere, but I look to history and find 'reports' of 'people' (iirc, Webster) deliberately changing the language - not out of ignorance, but just to piss off the English. It worked - and is still working.

And I can give you many examples of where typical British use (I don't say "English use" so as to remain unambiguous) has changed in the last couple hundred years and US use hasn't. Is England allowed to change the language and the US isn't?

Present-day British is no closer to that earlier [16th century] form than present-day American is. Indeed, in some ways present-day American is more conservative, that is, closer to the common original standard than is present-day British. [p. 179] .... On balance, it is hard to say which variety of English, American or British, is the more conservative and which is the more innovative. [p. 180 of Language Myths, Bauer and Trudgill, "America Is Ruining the English Language"]

part of the US culture (is that an oxymoron?)

We're still behind Europe in some sense, but we're also a quarter as old as most European countries.

Even given that, we're by no means devoid of our own culture. Would you like me to go through and name some American* authors, artists, composers, etc.?

Wow - you actually used 'correctly' correctly! Awesome! Obviously, you're not an Apple user, else you'd spell it different.

Heh. That always did bug me.

BTW, for anyone who's interested, it's not "British English", it's just "English".

"British English" is "the English language as spoken or written in the British Isles; esp. the forms of English usual in Great Britain, as contrasted with those characteristic of the U.S.A. or other English-speaking countries." [The OED under "British"]

The Scotts, Welsh and Irish each have their own language - some even use them.

What does that have to do with whether there is a British English?

*American. I know you apparently don't like this term. To be honest, I'm not exactly happy about it either. However, I cannot think of a term for us that is pronouncable and doesn't sound stupid. ("USians" is too hard to say if you pronounce it "U S ians" and stupid if you pronounce it "us ieans", and isn't consistant with not pronouncing "The US" as "The U S".) "Americans" is generally understood as referring to inhabitants of the US, especially in context, so for lack of a better term I'll use it.

Re:It's a name, not an adjective.

[moranar]

You might want to read the Wikipedia definition for Continent and then meditate on why that appropriation of the term "American" doesn't exactly endear you to Latin-americans. We've grown thinking that America is one continent. Since a definition of Continent is "a large continuous landmass", I see no reason to consider all of the American continent as a continent on its own.

If you add to this the various nationalistic-colonialistic disputes ant troubles between the USA and Latin-american countries in the past two centuries, you'll see how you people aren't exactly loved there. Trying to deny us the word "America" based on string parsing isn't improving things.

Re:It's a name, not an adjective.

[dmayle]

My Quebecois friends insist on the term États-Unisiens. (United-Statesians)

The problem is that your Quebecois friend would be wrong, and his arrogant decision to rename Americans would be confusing, as United-Statesiens might be from Mexico or the US of A. (Mexico is Estados Unidos Mexicanos which means the United States of Mexico in Spanish. [Source: Wikipedia) The fact of the matter is that the United States of America is the only country on either of the two American continents with "America" in it's name, and it is the only part of the name which is not shared with another country on the continet. Hence, Americans from the United States of America, and Mexicans from the United States of Mexico.

Re:It's a name, not an adjective.

[xtracto]

Sorry pal but for us the Mexicanos, the people from USA are called "Estadounidenses" which is quite the same thing as what the Quebecois guys called them.

The problem is that the USA is the only country that does not have a common name. The political name of Mexico is "Mexican United States", and the common name is Mexico, same with Canada, England, and all (that I know) countries in the world.

Whereas USA is the "common name" for United States of America, named after Americo Bespusio(Amerigo Vespucci), the cartographer to which America (the contintent that then became 2 contintents [althought that is not what they tell us in Mexican schools, where they take America as a complete continent]) owes its name. The United States part is just a descriptive adjective. Unfortunately, there are more than one United States in America now (even in North America), so the lack of name is what gives problems to the Estadounidenses.

But that is only a problem in the English language, as in Spanish, French and German (Vereinigten Staatler). Of course there are several other pejorative names that come to mind lingo Gringo, yanqui and polaco.