Are if-then-else statements slower in TI-Basic?

Question

When coding on a very slow machine, such as a TI-89, every statement counts.

I am often indecisive between two ways of writing if statements:

If bool Then
    int = 0
Else
    int = 1
End

or

int = 1
If bool Then
    int = 0
End

^{(Yes, I know with this example it doesn't really matter)}

So the question is, which one is faster and why?

BENCHMARK sigh....... can avoid the branch using an XOR .... — Mitch Wheat, Jan 11 '17 at 05:01
If only there were some method we could use to find this out. I think, were I to invent it, I might call it "benchmarking". :-) — paxdiablo, Jan 11 '17 at 05:06
Usually the later is better because affecting a value to a variable is a lot faster than two potential jumps. "Branching is bad for performance". Now, it really depends on how the language works. A TI-89 certainly uses a very slow interpreter, in which case, the less characters the better. — Guillaume F., Jan 11 '17 at 06:07
The TI-89 uses a Motorola 68k. GCC can compile into 68k. I never tested for this particular architecture, but I am willing to bet that writing C code and having the compiler worry about optimization is faster than TI-BASIC. Also you get to write in C :-) — FirefoxMetzger, Jan 16 '17 at 10:08
Yeah, @FirefoxMetzger , there is actually a program called TIGCC for that! I do use it, but there are occasions when I need on-calc programming. — epicbob57, Jan 17 '17 at 15:32

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 21 '18 at 17:19

1

For TI-89 Basic, use when: when(bool,0,1).

answered Oct 21 '18 at 17:19

bb94

1 Answers1