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From: "Peter S. Christopher" <peterc@midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: Floating Point?
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 09:34:58 -0500 (CDT)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.21.0309090924260.12910-100000@harper.uchicago.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20030909092613.GE29118@ws24047.math.univ-rennes1.fr>


As I mentioned in my last e-mail, I tried the python-approach and it does
give some nice performance enhancements. My problem with it is that it's
fairly awkward even for some relatively easy algorithms. I think (unless
anyone has any ideas;-}) it is as good as we'll get unless/until GUILE
becomes a compiled language. (In this later case, one could imagine
embedding special forms that allow fast array loops and other fancy
enhancments).  

Pete

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, David Allouche wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 09, 2003 at 09:52:26AM +0200, tomas@fabula.de wrote:
> > No. Arbitrary precision is for integers (it's impossible to do general
> > arbitrary precision for reals). Floats in Guile are just machine floats
> > (properly wrapped as SCMs, which might make them a tad `slower', though).
> > 
> > If I see right, they are just machine doubles, referenced indirectly
> > through the SCM object (thus the unwrapping costs you a dereference).
> 
> Just an idea...
> 
> Python had a similar problem: the language overhead dominated
> computing time in number crunching applications. This problem was
> solved by the implementation of a fast (written in C) matrix crunching
> library. The basic idea is "to add 1000 FP numbers, add two matrices
> and let the looping be done in C instead of in Scheme". Of course, the
> usual collection of algebra is also a nice bonus.
> 
> Now, Python, though well known as a generally slow language is
> successfully used in many demanding number-crunching applications.
> 
> -- 
> David Allouche         | GNU TeXmacs -- Writing is a pleasure
> Free software engineer |    http://www.texmacs.org
>    http://ddaa.net     |    http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/texmacs
>    david@allouche.net  |    allouche@texmacs.org
> TeXmacs is NOT a LaTeX front-end and is unrelated to emacs.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Guile-user mailing list
> Guile-user@gnu.org
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user
> 



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  reply	other threads:[~2003-09-09 14:34 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2003-09-06 18:10 Floating Point? Peter S. Christopher
2003-09-08 14:43 ` Betoes
2003-09-09  7:52   ` tomas
2003-09-09  9:26     ` David Allouche
2003-09-09 14:34       ` Peter S. Christopher [this message]
2003-09-09 21:15         ` Robert Uhl

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