Re: MD5 in Lua

[Jean-Claude Wippler <jcw@...>]

On Saturday 23 June 2001 12:43, John Passaniti wrote:
[...]
> 1.  Take the C code.
> 2.  Write a wrapper in Lua.
> 3.  Lua wins!!!

Except that, as the http://www.equi4.com/md5/ page says:
  "This is not an attempt to "win" or "prove", but to explore and learn"

The insight I have gained so far, is that Perl/Python/Tcl experts can achieve 
performance levels which are in the same league as Forth.  This is something 
I'd never have considered possible before.

The Python case is most instructive.  It shows that the overflow detection 
and automatic promotion to unlimited-precision arithmetic give it trouble for 
code such as needed in MD5.  But as explained in a recently added note, the 
VM level of performance is in fact more or less on par with Perl and Tcl.

Of course, there is not that much use for coding up MD5 this way, when just 
about every platform has a C version of it.

Still, these results help me understand where scripting can and cannot go.

I repeat: if anyone has a faster version in Lua (or a slower one which avoids 
the use of the bitlib library), then I'd be most happy to add it.

-jcw