I couldn't resist and emailed the author with my complaint: "C# code sometimes performs a thousand times faster than C and uses less memory. The only catch is that the C# program must be well-thought-out and precisely implemented." LMAO - please, don't publicize such drivel. Sure, ANY well-written program written in ANY language and running on a 286 COULD outperform a really crappy one running on a super computer. But this sort of statement is just offensive to computer science in general, and has nothing to do with anything meaningful. It only serves as some sort of pathetic cheerleading for C#. Geez... Respectfully, Kent Smotherman ------ Here is his reply: Hi Kent, I am sorry you find my article offensive. It is not my goal to cause any of my readers distress. However, I feel those words make perfect sense and are valid. I am not a stranger to critical comments from people like you. Please see the articles on Slashdot and Computer World (and about 5000 blogs) about my benchmarking results. People have said much more negative things. I appreciate suggestions and my readers' input (all 5,000+ a day) but I cannot see anything constructive in your comments. Sam ------ And here is my reply: Sam, If you don't see my point, then let me further articulate it from some real world experience: A few years ago I was called into a company to fix a batch process that was written in Perl. As their business grew this process was consuming hours to do it's work, and peaked at about 6 hours when they called me in. I wasn't a Perl guy, but was C, C++, and Java guy, and at that time did a lot of Java. I rewrote the process in Java, and when I was done the new app did the same work in about 10 minutes. The point here is that this example didn't mean Java was superior to Perl. It just meant that the Perl coders who had written the original app were morons who shouldn't be allowed near a computer again. This is very much like what your statement on C# was - yes, it can be thousands of times faster than C. My objection is that it is not inherently so, but due solely to factors in algorithms in your DAWG example. A casual reader would not have that impression, however, and would come away with the impression that C# was inherently better than C in both speed and memory usage. This is simply not the case. Respectfully, Kent Smotherman

Posted by Kent on September 18, 2008 at 01:22 PM CDT #

Thanks for the update, Sam - and thanks for considering my often-too-snarky comments. :)

Posted by Kent Smotherman on September 20, 2008 at 09:34 PM CDT #