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Re: Philosophy of for loops



Craig Markwardt wrote:
tclement@ucsd.edu (Todd Clements) writes:
>
> So what defines a slow loop? Is it having a bunch of accesses to
> sub-elements of arrays? Is it just having a bunch of statments? I suppose
> I could do some tests of my own, and I have a little, but it's much more
> fun to hear what you all have to say on the subject. I wouldn't have seen
> any IDL-ku if I just kept my thoughts to myself!

A good question.  I think there are two parts to it, and you are on
the right track.  Theory comes first, then some practical solutions.

IDL is a scripted language, so almost by definition very little
optimization can be done.  Sure, the IDL code is "compiled," but what
that really means is that the IDL statements are converted to some
intermediate form, sometimes called bytecode.

A Research Systems Engineer told me that it is called "P code".
-- 
Nando Iavarone
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