Performance measurements (was: python on the smalltalk VM)

[Douglas Alan]

claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird) writes:

> > [|>oug:] After many years of research, they came up with a
> > compiler for Self that would generate code that runs about one
> > half to one third the speed of compiled C code.  This is 30 to 50
> > times faster than Python.

> Something's not right here.  Even recognizing, as I'm sure we all
> do, that the speeds of various languages are exceedingly fuzzy
> measurements, it's been a loooooooong time since I've seen any
> signif- icant comparisons which put C two decimal orders of
> magnitude faster than Python.  Is there a typo somewhere in this
> transmission?

I'm just quoting Guido from a while back.  This is, of course, for
doing number crunching using only bare Python and normal loops.  If
you use NumPy or PyAPL or some other highly optimized C-coded
extension to do matrix operations on large matrices, then you can of
course do as well as C, because your number crunching is really being
done by C.  This is assuming you can figure out a way to turn your
number crunching problem into operations on large matrices.

All this should come as no shock -- 100 times slower for an
interpreted language is just par for a good interpreter.  Before the
spiffy Self compiler, state of the art was 10x slower than C for a
really bitchin' highly optimized Smalltalk compiler.

|>oug