[lug] Web crawler advice

[Jeffrey Haemer]

> Perl (for some UNHOLY reason) uses floating-point math to compare the main
> perl version number with the version numbers in any modules it loads at
> run-time.


In that vein, awk uses floating point for all its arithmetic.  It's also
interpreted, so a simple program like this

 awk 'BEGIN {for (i=0; i<10000; i++) print i }'

requires about a jillion conversions between floats and ints.  (I think the
precise number is pi jillion.)

Long ago, I watched Mark Rochkind run this very program, as a benchmark,
ask, "Why's this so sloooow?" and then smack his forehead; the box he was
running it on had no floating-point processor.

-- 
Jeffrey Haemer <jeffrey.haemer at gmail.com>
720-837-8908 [cell]
http://goyishekop.blogspot.com
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