Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 16:26:46 -0700 (MST) From: Ade Barkah <mbarkah@hemi.com> To: mrcpu@cdsnet.net (Jaye Mathisen) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: pib comments. Message-ID: <199701062326.QAA19442@hemi.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.95.970106121603.10100D-100000@mail.cdsnet.net> from Jaye Mathisen at "Jan 6, 97 01:03:17 pm"
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Jaye Mathisen wrote:
> My frustration with TCL/TK was related to performance in general,
> not your app. I've tried TKdesk, and it crawls, and zircon runs
> like a dog as well. The common thread being my machine, and tcl/tk
> apps.
Well, TCL is generally pretty slow. It was supposed to be just
a control/glue language, but somehow people are now writing huge
code entirely in tcl+tk, instead of doing most of the work in
something like C. During the "Great TCL Debate" =-) (circa 1994)
Tom Christiansen offered the following comparison:
[1000 iterations of factorial(20)]
C 0.230u 0.040s 0:00.34 79.4% 0+206k x= 1.0
scheme 2.170u 0.130s 0:02.81 81.8% 0+659k x= 9.4
perl5 2.800u 0.110s 0:02.95 98.6% 0+616k x= 12.2
python 4.710u 0.120s 0:05.18 93.2% 0+504k x= 20.5
perl4 9.820u 0.180s 0:10.61 94.2% 0+825k x= 42.7
tcl 26.950u 0.080s 0:28.43 95.0% 0+459k x=117.17
sh don't ask :-)
That x=117.17 is an eye opener. Of course one might think Tom used
an example that favors Perl. =-) Here's selected entries from
Jean-Jacques Girardot's benchmark posted to USENET back then:
[Fibonacci function, useful for measuring interpretive languages]
CPU Time Elapsed Time C Ratio
C 6.2u 0:08 1.0
GLisp 76.6u 1:19 12.4
Smalltalk 306.5u 5:19 49.4
SIOD 371.0u 14:41 59.8
XSCHEME 492.2u 8:20 79.4
Python 1627.4u 27:55 262.5
Tcl 3478.0u 1:00:27 561.0
Anyway, pretty interesting numbers; they're not conclusive, of
course, but imho one gets a feel for TCL's relative speed.
Regards,
-Ade
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