OpenEuphoria

Re: 64 bit euphoria

• Posted by Jason Gade <jaygade at yahoo.com> Apr 22, 2005
• 471 views

Kenneth Rhodes wrote:
> 
> Robert Craig wrote:
> > 
> 
> > There is hardly any asm in the Euphoria interpreter.
> > The front-end is written in Euphoria.
> > The back-end is 99.9% C. integers would likely become 63 bits 
> > instead of 31. That could lead to some small compatibility issues,
> > e.g. 
> >   if integer(x) then ... 
> > might have a different meaning.
> > 
> > It would probably not bother many people if a 
> > simple declaration of:
> >   integer x
> > now allowed x to be 63 bits in size.
> > 
> > The use of 64-bit pointers internally by the interpreter 
> > would probably not disturb most Euphoria programs. 
> > It would just allow much larger sequences to be created.
> 
> Just how big of a performance hit would the interpreter take
> if that 1% of the front-end code was written in C?

I think some of the assembly is the callback code, isn't it?  For X86-64 (or
AMD-64 or whatever you want to call it) I don't think that porting it would be
too difficult.

> 
> I believe that most, if not all, of the 64 bit processors will
> run at clock speeds exceeding 2Ghz which is probably about X50
> faster than when Euphoria was first released. If the interpreter's 
> speed is not throttled drastically, it
> might be just as appealing for development and would make
> the faster translated/compiled option an even more attractive 
> purchase.

Processors already go >2GHz.  Do we really need so much extra performance,
though?

* 64-bit OS's are still not mainstream although they are coming.
* 64-bit OS's will still run 32-bit software for the forseeable future.
* We will still be using 32-bit computers and OS's for many years to come.

> 
> Also, it seems that hence forth the 64bit cpus will multi-core,
> so shouldn't threads be a "must" feature for the next version of
> Euphoria?

Threads and 64-bitness would be okay but I think that Euphoria has other, more
pressing needs.  Maybe a 64-bit translator could be another value-added
proposition for RDS.

One thing that I have noticed is that RDS is very careful with changes made to
the language.  I know that it has frustrated many developers that it has not
moved beyond a "beginner's" language.  Whether that is by design or not I don't
know.

> 
> 
> Ken Rhodes
> 100% Microsoft Free!
> 


=====================================
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j.