Depends on how good a C programmer you are. If you're reasonably good, yes. Probably a factor of two to four if the transforms are simple. More, possibly, depending on the IO subsystem. (It doesn't matter if your C program could run 50 times faster than the perl one if you've already maxed out your IO channel going twice as fast. You'll just twiddle your thumbs more)
On the other hand it may take 5-10 times as long to write and debug the program, and maintenance/debugging it'll be a major pain relative to perl. | [reply] |
A valid question. My guess is yes, but that's based on tuning the custom C program based on what system it runs on. It also depends if this is a one-time job or a weekly/monthly thing, as my initial post said. For a one-time thing, definitely go Perl. For a weekly job, it's worth the investment to write a really well-tuned, optimized C program.
--t. alex
"Nyahhh (munch, munch) What's up, Doc?" --Bugs Bunny
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