Perl Outperforms C in OpenGL Benchmark

When programming OpenGL apps (a task I still want to try some time), few people think of Perl as an option. In a recent perl.com lightning article, a benchmark was performed to test Perl against C in OpenGL programs. Because in graphics applications most of the work is done in the GPU, an interpreted language can actually have a leg to stand on in writing code for such applications. In this benchmark, Perl performed almost equal to C in most cases. In fact, in FBO (Frame Buffer Override, I believe) operations, Perl actually

C! So, when considering a language to write GPGPUcode in, don’t always turn to the compiled languages such as C for systems development. Perl can often be better for reasons such as the article states:

• Perl OpenGL code is more portable than C; therefore there are fewer lines of code
• Numerous imaging modules for loading GPGPU data arrays (textures)
• Portable, open source modules for system and auxiliary functions
• Perl (under mod-perl/ISAPI) is generally faster than Java
• It is easier to port Perl to/from C than Python or Ruby
• As of this writing, there is no FBO support in Java, Python, or Ruby

The article is here:

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2007/04/12/lightning-four.html?page=2