From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Jan 6 15:27:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id PAA09618 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 6 Jan 1997 15:27:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from hemi.com (hemi.com [204.132.158.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id PAA09613 for ; Mon, 6 Jan 1997 15:27:03 -0800 (PST) Received: (from mbarkah@localhost) by hemi.com (8.8.4/8.7.3) id QAA19442; Mon, 6 Jan 1997 16:26:47 -0700 (MST) From: Ade Barkah Message-Id: <199701062326.QAA19442@hemi.com> Subject: Re: pib comments. To: mrcpu@cdsnet.net (Jaye Mathisen) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 16:26:46 -0700 (MST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, hackers@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from Jaye Mathisen at "Jan 6, 97 01:03:17 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Inet: mbarkah@hemi.com - HEMISPHERE ONLINE - -------------------------------------------------------------------