quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
There was a post on Turbo that described a way to do template-like things using Interfaces in Delphi. I''ll dig up the link later (tomorrow, because it''s time for me bed), unless Sly beats me to it, but rest assured it''s possible.

Yes I will beat you to it. Here''s the link
Templates in Object Pascal
Mind you, they are only simulating templates and they do not support all the features of C++ templates. They are also a bit messier to setup.

quote:NuffSaid: I think you can just say:

procedure Stuff(a: array of Integer);
begin
{ use High() to get upper bounds of a, zero-based }
end;

This should work for any array. It''s called Open Arrays, and is handled differently from Dynamic Arrays (which use exactly the same syntax, just out of a procedure).

Use Low() for the lower bounds of the array instead of assuming it is zero. You could also pass a pointer to the first element and a count and do pointer arithmetic just like in C.

In my various projects I use a mixture of Delphi and C/C++, sometimes both in the same project. As grasshopa55 said, speed of compiled is not really an issue today unless you are an absolute optimization freak wanting the highest performance possible.

Note that I am typing this while waiting for the PS2 version of our game to build. We get an average of about 15 minutes per rebuild using a GNU C++ compiler.

Steve ''Sly'' Williams  Monkey Wrangler  Krome Studios

quote:Original post by grasshopa55
As for execution speed, unless you are planning on supporting older systems, 386, 486, etc, it may be a mute point. Computer hardware is so inexpensive these days, that you don''t need to be as stingy when it comes to CPU cycles.

Sorry grasshopa, I do not agree. While hardware has gotten better and cheaper, and optimizing the hell out of your code isn''t as important as it once was, I still believe that allowing yourself to think this way only promotes laziness. Last thing this world needs is more lazy programmers, I''m sick of the ones I work with.

My two cents, take it, leave it, throw it in the fountain for all I care, but at least you listened.



If only debugging were as easy as killing cockroaches... *sigh*

The Java article doesn''t address a major issue with Java. Slow GUI performance.

Until the performance of Swing/JFC improves, there''s still a very good reason to stick with C++ and Native apps.

Silent Error,

I completely agree with you in optimizing your code, but the argument here was which compiler produces the fastest code. I work as a developer doing performance engineering work. In every project I work on, performance is at the heart of it. I don''t consider myself a lazy programmer, but I also don''t see the need to optimize code so far down that the only way to get it faster is with ASM. The days of DOS and 640K restrictions are long gone. Don''t get me wrong, I am not advocating sloppy code, I am saying, you don''t need to be so stingy.

A good optimization/error checking tool is NuMega''s DevPartner. Bounds Checker has saved me a great deal of time tracking down memory leaks and other, sneaky, silent errors :-P. Back to the topic, it is not the compiler per se that produces the fastest executing code, its the programmer behind the code that determines its speed. Again, I feel as though this argument is kind of mute. Oh well, take it or leave it.


-----------------------------
kevin@mayday-anime.com
http://games.mayday-anime.com

quote:Original post by grasshopa55

Don''t get me wrong, I am not advocating sloppy code, I am saying, you don''t need to be so stingy.

Sorry about that. I have a rather bad habit of opening my mouth and ranting when I really don''t fully understand just who or what I''m ranting at. Shall we say open_mouth_insert_foot() is called more than absolutely necessary on my behalf? I''m certain it''s causing performance issues...

quote:
Bounds Checker has saved me a great deal of time tracking down memory leaks and other, sneaky, silent errors :-P.

Got my nick from a while back when asked what the problem was with a particular piece of code. Was working on a small project with some buddies of mine, one of them wrote this function that upon casual observance should work fine, but it wouldn''t work at all. So I had a look and reported to my friends that, "We had a silent error, but I corrected it..." The error was actually a rather simple logic error, the phrase "silent error" has forever been stuck with me since.

Anyway, now that I''m WAY off topic, I guess I''ll run, I should be doing better things anyway. Damn College.



If only debugging were as easy as killing cockroaches... *sigh*