Thought for the day

**Dundeegeorge** · 9 March 2006, 19:09

Wise words, Alexei

I shall carry them in my heart all day tomorrow.
Probably.

**DimPrawn** · 9 March 2006, 19:31

Didn't you talk about BitVector class about a year ago Alexei?

Surely you have moved on since then?

**Fungus** · 9 March 2006, 19:32

Originally posted by Dundeegeorge

I shall carry them in my heart all day tomorrow.
Probably.

Me too. It's exciting moments like this that make one's life worth living.

**Fungus** · 9 March 2006, 19:35

Originally posted by AtW

Performance of .NET's BitVector32 is disappointing and having to declare access to (interfaced) variables in interface classes seems to hit performance too.

I once wrote two programs to manipulate maps and lists. The first used STL, the second MFC. Guess which was fastest? Yup. The STL program was twice as fast as the MS one.

MS are agressive and well marketed, but often not the best. As an example, COM is widely used, and has helped me earn a living. But IMO it can be fiendishly difficult to maintain, especially for those unskilled in the technology. And the debugging support is awful. It's as if MS are creating a demand for geeks with specialist MS knowledge.

**DimPrawn** · 9 March 2006, 19:40

Perhaps you can be more specific about what is wrong with the BitVector32 class and I'll see if we can fix it for you?

**AtW** · 9 March 2006, 20:02

Nothing is wrong, its just not as fast as doing bitshifts yourself - it sure is annoying to create bitmasks manually but its a LOT faster - with luck compiler will also inline those shifts, something it definately won't do for normal BitVector32 operations that use indexer - function calls are not cheap on x86.

Now interface really annoyed me by requiring to use accessors for variables (that were declared in interface) - rather annoying since I can't see any good reason for that.

**DimPrawn** · 9 March 2006, 20:08

You mean this?

public int this[BitVector32.Section section]
{
get
{
return (int) ((this.data & (section.Mask << (section.Offset & 0x1f))) >> (section.Offset & 0x1f));
}
set
{
value = value << (section.Offset & 0x1f);
int num1 = (0xffff & section.Mask) << (section.Offset & 0x1f);
this.data = (uint) ((this.data & ~num1) | (value & num1));
}
}

**ratewhore** · 9 March 2006, 20:11

shoot me

**VectraMan** · 9 March 2006, 20:14

Originally posted by Fungus

I once wrote two programs to manipulate maps and lists. The first used STL, the second MFC. Guess which was fastest? Yup. The STL program was twice as fast as the MS one.

That's just stupid. They're both template container classes to help you out, neither are meant to be the best possible solution. If you really wanted performance, you should have used your own classes and optimised it to do exactly what you needed. And we don't know that you're comparing like with like here.

Frankly I've always thought STL was needlessly over complicated, and that the MFC container classes are much easier to use.

It's as if MS are creating a demand for geeks with specialist MS knowledge.

Well errr yeah. What's .NET if not a way to generate work for the industry and further their hold on it?

Thought for the day