[Python-Dev] Pie-thon benchmark code ready

[Guido van Rossum]

While it's still 2003 in most of the US and Europe (and happy new year
to the folks in Asia, Australia and New Zealand! :-), I present the
official Pie-thon Parrot Benchmark:

  ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/parrotbench/parrotbench.tgz

I'll quote from the README.txt file:

"""
This is a benchmark to be run in front of a live audience at OSCON
2004 between Python and Parrot.  The bytecode must be Python 2.3
bytecode frozen in December 2003 (which is almost over as I write this
:-).

For some more background, see the python-dev thread around
  http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-December/040977.html

The benchmark here is intended to make Dan Sugalski's life difficult:
there are some standard benchmark thingies (simple random algorithms
using basic data types) but also a lot of play with odd corners of the
language definition, and Python's extremely dynamic object model:
funky descriptors, mutable classes, that sort of thing.  The benchmark
is supposed to run with either Python 2.3 or Python 2.4.

[...]

On timing: there's a requirement that the benchmark runs for at least
30 seconds.  It currently runs for nearly a minute on my home box,
which is a four-year-old 650 MHz Pentium box.  If the contest hardware
is so fast that it runs under a minute, there's a number in b.py that
can be cranked up to increase the number of runs.  (It takes 27
seconds on my recent work desktop, and on my screaming IBM T40 laptop
it runs in 15 seconds, so I suspect that we should at least double the
number of runs from 2 to 4.)
"""

I'd be happy to answer any questions.  Let the competition begin!

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)