Mathematica 7 compares to other languages

[Thomas M. Hermann]

On Dec 3, 3:15 pm, Xah Lee <xah... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 3, 8:24 am, Jon Harrop <j... at ffconsultancy.com> wrote:
>
> > My example demonstrates several of Mathematica's fundamental limitations.
>
> enough babble Jon.
>
> Come flying $5 to my paypal account, and i'll give you real code,
> amongest the programing tech geekers here for all to see.
>
> I'll show, what kinda garbage you cooked up in your Mathematica code
> for “comparison”.
>
> You can actually just post your “comparisons” to “comp.soft-
> sys.math.mathematica”, and you'll be ridiculed to death for any
> reasonable judgement of claim on fairness.
>
> > Consequently, there is great value in combining Mathematica with performant
> > high-level languages like OCaml and F#. This is what the vast majority of
> > Mathematica users do: they use it as a glorified graph plotter.
>
> glorified your ass.
>
> Yeah, NASA, Intel, NSA, ... all use Mathematica to glorify their
> pictures. LOL.
>
> > What exactly do you believe is wrong with my code?
>
> come flies $5 to my paypal, and i'll explain further.
>
> > I am not trying to make Mathematica look bad. It is simply not suitable when
> > hierarchical solutions are preferable...
>
> Certainly there are areas other langs are more suitable and better
> than Mathematica (for example: assembly langs). But not in the ways
> you painted it to peddle your F# and OCaml books.
>
> You see Jon, you are this defensive, trollish guy, who takes every
> opportunity to slight other langs that's not one of your F#, OCml that
> you make a living of. In every opportunity, you injest your gribes
> about static typing and other things, and thru ensuring chaos paves
> the way for you to post urls to your website.
>
> With your math and functional programing expertise and Doctor label,
> it can be quite intimidating to many geekers. But when you bump into
> me, i don't think you have a chance.
>
> As a scientist, i think perhaps you should check your newsgroup
> demeanor a bit? I mean, you already have a reputation of being biased.
> Too much bias and peddling can be detrimental to your career, y'known?
>
> to be sure, i still respect your expertise and in general think that a
> significant percentage of tech geeker's posts in debate with you are
> moronic, especially the Common Moron Lispers, and undoubtably the Java
> and imperative lang slaving morons who can't grope the simplest
> mathematical concepts. Throwing your Mathematica bad mouthing at me
> would be a mistake.
>
> Come, fly $5 to my paypal account. Let the challenge begin.
>
>   Xah
> ∑http://xahlee.org/
>
> ☄

Xah,

I'll pay $20 to see your improved version of the code. The only
references to PayPal I saw on your website were instructions to direct
the payment to xah at xahlee.org, please let me know if that is correct.

What I want in return is you to execute and time Dr. Harrop's original
code, posting the results to this thread. Then, I would like you to
post your code with the timing results to this thread as well.

By Dr. Harrop's original code, I specifically mean the code he posted
to this thread. I've pasted it below for clarity.

Jon Harrop coded a ray tracer in Mathematica:

> delta = Sqrt[$MachineEpsilon];
>
> RaySphere[o_, d_, c_, r_] :=
>   Block[{v, b, disc, t1, t2},
>     v = c - o;
>     b = v.d;
>     disc = Sqrt[b^2 - v.v + r^2];
>     t2 = b + disc;
>     If[Im[disc] != 0 || t2 <= 0, \[Infinity],
>       t1 = b - disc;
>       If[t1 > 0, t1, t2]]
>     ]
>
> Intersect[o_, d_][{lambda_, n_}, Sphere[c_, r_]] :=
>  Block[{lambda2 = RaySphere[o, d, c, r]},
>   If[lambda2 >= lambda, {lambda, n}, {lambda2,
>     Normalize[o + lambda2 d - c]}]
>   ]
> Intersect[o_, d_][{lambda_, n_}, Bound[c_, r_, s_]] :=
>  Block[{lambda2 = RaySphere[o, d, c, r]},
>   If[lambda2 >= lambda, {lambda, n},
>    Fold[Intersect[o, d], {lambda, n}, s]]
>   ]
>
> neglight = N at Normalize[{1, 3, -2}];
>
> nohit = {\[Infinity], {0, 0, 0}};
>
> RayTrace[o_, d_, scene_] :=
>  Block[{lambda, n, g, p},
>   {lambda, n} = Intersect[o, d][nohit, scene];
>   If[lambda == \[Infinity], 0,
>    g = n.neglight;
>    If[g <= 0, 0,
>     {lambda, n} =
>      Intersect[o + lambda d + delta n, neglight][nohit, scene];
>     If[lambda < \[Infinity], 0, g]]]
>   ]
>
> Create[level_, c_, r_] :=
>  Block[{obj = Sphere[c, r]},
>   If[level == 1, obj,
>    Block[{a = 3*r/Sqrt[12], Aux},
>     Aux[x1_, z1_] := Create[level - 1, c + {x1, a, z1}, 0.5 r];
>     Bound[c,
>      3 r, {obj, Aux[-a, -a], Aux[a, -a], Aux[-a, a], Aux[a, a]}]]]]
>
> scene = Create[1, {0, -1, 4}, 1];
>
> Main[level_, n_, ss_] :=
>  Block[{scene = Create[level, {0, -1, 4}, 1]},
>   Table[
>    Sum[
>      RayTrace[{0, 0, 0},
>       N at Normalize[{(x + s/ss/ss)/n - 1/2, (y + Mod[s, ss]/ss)/n - 1/2,
>           1}], scene], {s, 0, ss^2 - 1}]/ss^2, {y, 0, n - 1},
>    {x, 0, n - 1}]]
>
> AbsoluteTiming[Export["image.pgm", Graphics at Raster@Main[9, 512, 4]]]
>