[erlang-questions] clueless performance question

[Thomas Lindgren]

--- Mike Shaver <mike.shaver@REDACTED> wrote:
> Work on tracing JITs indicates that the overhead of
> late binding can
> be made to disappear completely in the loops and
> functions that
> comprise virtually all of a program's work -- even
> in languages that
> don't have Erlang's functional goodness to assist
> the compilers, and
> permit mutation of objects in more
> difficult-to-handle ways than
> module reload.

On one hand, I'd say Erlang is probably more
straightforward to compile than at least some
OO-languages, and Hipe thoughtfully has provided the
infrastructure for JIT native compilation, etc etc.
Java has already made great strides regarding
performance. So there's clearly hope for further
progress. 

On the other hand, these techniques require serious
manpower to implement and in practice there's just a
handful of people actually working on Erlang
implementation. I don't even know of _anyone_
currently working on general compiler issues except
Björn? So clearly things will get prioritized, and I
guess progress will be slow ... (That said, I don't
hear many complaints about performance these days.
Perhaps time is better spent on other issues.)

Best,
Thomas