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Skeptical of rewriting JavaScript tools in "faster" languages

(nolanlawson.com)
160 points todsacerdoti | 3 comments | 20 Oct 24 21:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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jpalawaga ◴[20 Oct 24 21:53 UTC] No.41898791[source]▶
Anyone who has done a programming contest, advent of code, etc knows that the language doesn’t matter so much as your algorithm.

Yes, the language can bring a nice speed up, or might give you better control of allocations which can save a lot of time. But in many cases, simply picking the correct algorithm will deliver you most of the performance.

As someone who doesn’t JavaScript a lot, I’d definitely prefer a tool written in go and available on brew over something I need to invoke node and its environment for.

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noname120 ◴[20 Oct 24 22:07 UTC] No.41898879[source]▶
It's not just a matter of “picking the correct algorithm”. Algorithmic-interview exercises are algorithmic-interview exercices. They are barely related to real-world software engineering.
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1. anyfoo ◴[20 Oct 24 22:09 UTC] No.41898892[source]▶
Choosing the right algorithm is usually the prerequisite for fast code. Optimizing the constant factors is often pretty useless if you pick an algorithm with a runtime that grows quadratically, when there are much better options available.
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2. noname120 ◴[20 Oct 24 22:12 UTC] No.41898918[source]▶
What makes you think that the sluggishness of these tools is in any way related to not “choosing the right algorithm”?
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3. anyfoo ◴[20 Oct 24 22:14 UTC] No.41898933[source]▶
What makes you think they're not? I don't know why these tools are sluggish, but I disagree with the notion that algorithms don't matter for "real-world software engineering".

The world is full of slow software because one chose the wrong algorithm: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2019/04/21/on2-in-createpr... https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2019/12/08/on2-again-now-i... https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2021/02/16/arranging-invis... ...