Talk:C (programming language): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:13, 21 August 2025

Latest revision as of 05:21, 25 August 2025

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The entire section reads as something you would read on a website comparing Linux distros where it's clear the author has no idea what they're talking about. [[Special:Contributions/196.211.140.249|196.211.140.249]] ([[User talk:196.211.140.249|talk]]) 08:55, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

:That was added at [[Special:Diff/1301098576|02:36, 18 July 2025]] and should probably be removed. I doubt sites.google.com is a [[WP:RS|reliable source]]. Also, the [[WP:LEAD]] is supposed to be a summary of what is in the article. The lead should not be used to add ideas. [[User:Johnuniq|Johnuniq]] ([[User talk:Johnuniq|talk]]) 09:13, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

:Lets not pretend that C uses the same energy usage as Python. The Cython website claims benchmarks where Cython beat the reference implementation of Python in speed by a factor of 95. Even Cython, which few Python users use, uses more energy than typical C program equivalents. Almost all Python users use the reference implementation, which is well known for wasting CPU time, RAM, electricity, etc. Obviously, 95 is higher than the 80 times energy usage increase stated; however, the difference between 95 and 80 can be attributed to the fact that speed is not the same as energy usage.

:Somewhere else on the internet, I saw something where someone got a 75 times speedup in the training of a neural network by rewriting their Python to C, while using the same machine learning library. However, I do not remember where I saw that. [[User:Lxvgu5petXUJZmqXsVUn2FV8aZyqwKnO|Lxvgu5petXUJZmqXsVUn2FV8aZyqwKnO]] ([[User talk:Lxvgu5petXUJZmqXsVUn2FV8aZyqwKnO|talk]]) 20:07, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

::The point, which has not been acknowledged, is we don't cite [[WP:USERGENERATED|user-generated sources]] in any instance. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;🌈&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''论'''</span>]]</span> 20:11, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

::This was returned with a [[WP:ARXIV]] preprint, which is another kind of user-generated source, so that's not any better. Kindly secure agreement on this talk page before reinserting any variation of this claim. [[User:MrOllie|MrOllie]] ([[User talk:MrOllie|talk]]) 21:29, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

:::@[[User:MrOllie|MrOllie]], I looked via Google Scholar and thought I saw another version of the paper published somewhere on Harvard's webspace, but I clicked in and saw it was just another arXiv portal or something, whoops. Sorry for the confusion. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;🌈&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''论'''</span>]]</span> 01:05, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

:In many implementations, C compiles directly to machine code that runs directly on the target procsssor. Many other languages are either JITting, or use bytecodes which are considerably less efficient. While C is far from unique in producing machine code, it is totemic in doing so, and engineers choose C for its close-to-machine output. Perhaps words should go in the lede (or elsewhere) to extol this close-to-machine benefit of the language, perhaps alongside comparisons to other compiled languages. I don't think citing 80x or similar is wise, given how context-dependent such figures will be. [[User:Chumpih|<span style="text-shadow: 2px 2.5px 3px #448811bb">Chumpih</span>]] ^{[[User talk:Chumpih|t]]} 22:48, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

::That's more or less what the third paragraph of the lead is doing. [[User:MrOllie|MrOllie]] ([[User talk:MrOllie|talk]]) 01:10, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

:::Yes, sort of. The 'designed to be compiled' part in lede para 3 is fine, but perhaps we should have words that spell out what that implies in terms of efficiency. This would be alongside other compiled languages, and in contrast to other languages which rely on interpreters, JIT, bytecodes, etc. [[User:Chumpih|<span style="text-shadow: 2px 2.5px 3px #448811bb">Chumpih</span>]] ^{[[User talk:Chumpih|t]]} 05:21, 25 August 2025 (UTC)