Timing neural networks in C and ada

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we describe a neural network program that was originally developed in C, then ported to Ada 2005. We explain several simple modifications to the Ada code that reduce the overhead from 76% to 0%. These modifications could provide significant performance gains to other applications, allowing them to combine the safety of Ada with the speed of C. such a complicated data structure. In Section 3, we explain how we modified the code in translating it to Ada. Section 4 describes how we made simple changes to the Ada implementation to eliminate the additional overhead. Section 5 provides conclusions and insights for future projects.

REFERENCES

• 1: Frode Tennebø, Elegance of Java and the Efficiency of C++--It's Ada, Linux Journal, v.2000 n.80es, Nov. 2000
• 2: Weiskirchner, Marcus. (September, 2003). Comparison of the Execution Times of Ada, C and Java. {Online}. Available: http://www.aicas.com/info/EADS_benchmark_language_comparison.pdf.
• 3: Corlan, A. D. "Language Benchmarks." {Online}. Available: http://dan.corlan.net/bench.html.
• 4: Kuhn, Markus. "Markus Kuhn's Ada95 page." {Online}. Available: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ada.html.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.3 Language Constructs and Features

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS
      Subjects: Performance attributes

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.6 Learning
          Subjects: Connectionism and neural nets

General Terms:
Languages, Performance

Keywords:
C, ada, benchmarking, neural networks