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0 pointsmattnewport7y ago0 comments

The discussion was about JITs vs AoT compiled native code. Unity is not using a JIT runtime for their new Burst compiler but using LLVM to do AoT native compilation and getting rid of garbage collection. If you get rid of JIT and garbage collection then yes, a subset of C# can be competitive in performance with C++ for some uses.

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pjmlp7y ago

JIT vs AOT is an implementation detail, nothing to do with a programming language as such, unless we are speaking about dynamic languages, traditionally very hard to AOT.

In fact C# always supported AOT compilation, just that Microsoft never bothered to actually optimize the generated code, as NGEN usage scenario is fast startup with dynamic linking for desktop applications.

While on Midori, Singularity, Windows 8.x Store, and now .NET Native, C# is always AOT compiled to native code, using static linking in some cases.

As for GC, C# always offered a few ways to avoid allocations, it is a matter for developers to actually learn to use the tools at their disposal.

With C# 7.x language features and the new Span related classes, it is even easier to avoid triggering the GC in high performance paths.

kartickv7y ago

For someone who doesn't develop for the MS stack but is still curious, what are these ways to avoid allocations and GC in performance-critical paths?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse