From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id XAA26541; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 23:46:45 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA26233 for ; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 23:46:45 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from relay.pair.com (relay1.pair.com [209.68.1.20]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id g6QLkiD18730 for ; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 23:46:44 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 54585 invoked from network); 26 Jul 2002 21:46:42 -0000 Received: from node-d8e9cca2.powerinter.net (HELO checkerlap.d6.com) (216.233.204.162) by relay1.pair.com with SMTP; 26 Jul 2002 21:46:42 -0000 X-pair-Authenticated: 216.233.204.162 Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20020726142932.02bedd60@mail.d6.com> X-Sender: checker@mail.d6.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 14:42:27 -0700 To: Pal-Kristian Engstad , Travis Bemann From: Chris Hecker Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Caml productivity. Cc: caml-list@inria.fr In-Reply-To: <20020724094534.37196.qmail@web13303.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20020723232036.A663@execpc.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk > What is the > overhead for calling a function that is executing a > few assembly instructions? I don't think inline assembly is a very valuable feature at this point. Function call overhead on modern processors is very small, and enabling inline asm messes up a lot of compiler optimizations for surrounding code. It's going to be another generation or two before a higher level language like caml is going to be appropriate for console games, and I don't think there's any way around that. I think it's just starting to be okay for PC games, but even the next gen consoles are going to be too memory constrained and it's always much more cost-effective to super-optimize a console game (both memory- and cpu-wise), at least for the next few ship cycles. On the original topic of this thread, I am still withholding judgment on caml for game programming until I actually finish my game, but I sincerely doubt it will be anywhere near 3x as productive for the kind of imperative simulation-y code that makes up a game. If any game company could actually get 3x productivity out of their programmers, they'd retrain everybody in an instant. 3x is huge. I think caml is definitely more fun to program with, but if it's at all more productive, it's going to be in the 10-40% range at best (and most of that is going to come from the gc). Chris ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners