OpenEuphoria

2. Re: using compare

• Posted by jiri babor <jbabor at PARADISE.NET.NZ> Nov 15, 1998
• 434 views

David,

This morning, after I saw your testy response to my impulsive last
night note, I went back and checked it again. It sounds stupid now.
You must know I did not mean to imply anything else than what it says.
Compare tests do take at least twice as long as a simple equality
test, but it is really a very small difference, unless it happens in
an innermost loop of a frequently used routine. I also dislike the
name of the routine, probably even more than you do. Sorry. jiri

-----Original Message-----
From: David Cuny <dcuny at LANSET.COM>
To: EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU <EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Date: Sunday, November 15, 1998 7:06 AM
Subject: using compare


>[to anyone who has tried to send me any personal e-mail recently - my
e-mail
>got mangled, and kept looping on Jesse Kint's message... now I don't seem
to
>be able to get stuff from the Euphoria server, and so I have to check the
>archives for posts.  ]
>
>Jiri wondered:
>
>> I just want to know why you stubbornly and wastefully use
>> the despised compare() function even when both arguments
>> are integers?
>
>Ouch. 
>
>You are certinly right about the "despised" portion - I hate doing work
>that's easily done by the compiler. But I've gotten burned so often by
>accidentally using '=' that I use 'compare' out of habit.
>
>But is 'compare' that inefficient? I would imagine that Robert could fairly
>easily check the args and make it as efficient as '=' if he wanted to (is
>this already being done?). That might be a nice feature for people like me
>that are "wasteful" in not optimizing their code.
>
>Thanks.
>
>-- David Cuny
>