在听StackOverflow播客的时候,经常有人说“真正的程序员”是用C语言编写的,而C语言的速度要快得多,因为它“接近机器”。把前面的断言留到另一篇文章,C有什么特别之处,使它比其他语言更快?或者换句话说:什么能阻止其他语言编译成二进制代码,使其运行速度与C语言一样快?


当前回答

这都是时间和努力的问题。

给予无限的时间和努力:

汇编程序比用C语言编写的程序要快。 C程序将比用c++编写的程序更快。

固定的:给定一定的时间和努力:

c++程序比用C编写的程序要快。 C语言的程序比用汇编语言编写的程序要快。

为什么?因为你做的抽象越多,你就可以花更多的时间来优化真正重要的代码关键部分。这里的几个假设是,一个开发人员对这三种语言都有同样的能力,你不关心二进制大小、内存使用情况等。

每种抽象都有其成本效益,但应该使代码更容易、更快地编写。

其他回答

这实际上是一个长期存在的谎言。虽然C程序确实经常更快,但情况并非总是如此,特别是当C程序员不太擅长它的时候。

人们往往会忘记的一个明显的漏洞是,当程序必须为某种IO阻塞时,比如任何GUI程序中的用户输入。在这些情况下,使用什么语言并不重要,因为您受到数据传入速度的限制,而不是处理数据的速度。在这种情况下,不管你使用的是C、Java、c#甚至Perl;你不能比数据进入的速度更快。

The other major thing is that using garbage collection and not using proper pointers allows the virtual machine to make a number of optimizations not available in other languages. For instance, the JVM is capable of moving objects around on the heap to defragment it. This makes future allocations much faster since the next index can simply be used rather than looking it up in a table. Modern JVMs also don't have to actually deallocate memory; instead, they just move the live objects around when they GC and the spent memory from the dead objects is recovered essentially for free.

This also brings up an interesting point about C and even more so in C++. There is something of a design philosophy of "If you don't need it, you don't pay for it." The problem is that if you do want it, you end up paying through the nose for it. For instance, the vtable implementation in Java tends to be a lot better than C++ implementations, so virtual function calls are a lot faster. On the other hand, you have no choice but to use virtual functions in Java and they still cost something, but in programs that use a lot of virtual functions, the reduced cost adds up.

与其说C的速度快,不如说C的成本模型是透明的。如果一个C程序慢,它的慢是通过一个明显的方式:执行很多语句。与C语言中操作的代价相比,对对象(特别是反射)或字符串的高级操作可能具有不明显的代价。

标准ML(使用MLton编译器)和Objective Caml这两种语言通常编译成二进制文件的速度与C语言一样快。如果你检查一下基准测试游戏,你会发现对于一些基准测试,比如二叉树,OCaml版本比c更快(我没有找到任何MLton的条目)。但不要把枪战看得太严重;正如它所说的,它是一个游戏,结果通常反映了人们在调优代码上投入了多少精力。

C语言并不总是更快。

C语言比现代Fortran语言慢。

在某些方面,C通常比Java慢。(特别是在JIT编译器对您的代码进行了测试之后)

C允许发生指针混叠,这意味着一些好的优化是不可能的。特别是当您有多个执行单元时,这将导致数据获取停滞。噢。

指针算术工作的假设确实会导致某些CPU系列(特别是PIC !)它曾经在x86上很差劲。

基本上,当你得到一个矢量单元,或者一个并行编译器,C语言很糟糕,而现代的Fortran运行得更快。

C程序员的一些技巧,比如thking(动态修改可执行文件)会导致CPU预取暂停。

明白我的意思了吗?

而我们的好朋友x86执行的指令集,如今与实际的CPU架构关系不大。影子寄存器,负载存储优化器,都在CPU中。所以C离虚拟金属很近。真正的金属,英特尔不会让你看到。(从历史上看,VLIW CPU有点破产,所以,也许这并不是那么糟糕。)

如果你在高性能DSP上用C编程(可能是TI DSP ?),编译器必须做一些棘手的事情,在多个并行执行单元之间展开C。因此,在这种情况下,C语言并不接近金属,但它接近编译器,它将进行整个程序优化。奇怪。

最后,一些cpu (www.ajile.com)在硬件中运行Java字节码。C将在该CPU上使用一个PITA。

在过去,只有两种类型的语言:编译型和解释型。

编译语言利用“编译器”读取语言语法并将其转换为相同的汇编语言代码,这可以直接在CPU上进行。解释型语言使用了几种不同的方案,但从本质上讲,语言语法被转换成一种中间形式,然后在“解释器”(用于执行代码的环境)中运行。

因此,在某种意义上,在代码和机器之间存在另一个“层”——解释器。而且,在计算机中,越多就意味着使用更多的资源。翻译速度较慢,因为他们必须执行更多的操作。

More recently, we've seen more hybrid languages like Java, that employ both a compiler and an interpreter to make them work. It's complicated, but a JVM is faster, more sophisticated and way more optimized than the old interpreters, so it stands a much better change of performing (over time) closer to just straight compiled code. Of course, the newer compilers also have more fancy optimizing tricks so they tend to generate way better code than they used to as well. But most optimizations, most often (although not always) make some type of trade-off such that they are not always faster in all circumstances. Like everything else, nothing comes for free, so the optimizers must get their boast from somewhere (although often times it using compile-time CPU to save runtime CPU).

Getting back to C, it is a simple language, that can be compiled into fairly optimized assembly and then run directly on the target machine. In C, if you increment an integer, it's more than likely that it is only one assembler step in the CPU, in Java however, it could end up being a lot more than that (and could include a bit of garbage collection as well :-) C offers you an abstraction that is way closer to the machine (assembler is the closest), but you end up having to do way more work to get it going and it is not as protected, easy to use or error friendly. Most other languages give you a higher abstraction and take care of more of the underlying details for you, but in exchange for their advanced functionality they require more resources to run. As you generalize some solutions, you have to handle a broader range of computing, which often requires more resources.

保罗。

c++的平均速度更快(就像它最初一样,主要是C的超集,尽管有一些不同)。然而,对于特定的基准测试,通常有另一种更快的语言。

https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/

fannjuch-redux是Scala中最快的

n-body和fasta在Ada中更快。

频谱范数在Fortran中是最快的。

反补、mandelbrot和pidigits在ATS中最快。

regex-dna是JavaScript中最快的。

chameneau -redux最快的是Java 7。

Haskell的螺纹环速度最快。

其余的基准测试在C或c++中是最快的。