[ruby-talk:14718] SV: Why's Ruby so slow in this case?

Stefan Matthias Aust wrote:
| I wonder whether there are some ways to optimize this code other than
| to completely change the algorithm.

Yes.

| BTW, is there a way to profile just a part of a program?

Yes: The Benchmark module.

I benchmarked the different ways of iteration just to show you some valuable
info...

----
require 'benchmark'
include Benchmark

n = 125
c = 10000
a=(0..n).to_a

bm(12) do |t|
  t.report("range ") { c.times { (0..n).each {|x| x*x} } }
  t.report("array ") { c.times { a.each {|x| x*x} } }
  t.report("upto  ") { c.times { 0.upto(n) {|x| x*x} } }
  t.report("downto") { c.times { n.downto(0) {|x| x*x} } }
  t.report("times ") { c.times { n.times {|x| x*x} } }
  t.report("while ") { c.times { x=0; while(x < n); x*x; x+=1; end } }
  t.report("until ") { c.times { x=0; until(x == n); x*x; x+=1; end } }
end
-----

The result:

                  user     system      total        real
range         2.875000   0.000000   2.875000 (  2.850000)
array         2.670000   0.000000   2.670000 (  2.690000)
upto          2.658000   0.000000   2.658000 (  2.640000)
downto        2.666000   0.000000   2.666000 (  2.690000)
times         2.649000   0.000000   2.649000 (  2.640000)
while         2.700000   0.000000   2.700000 (  2.690000)
until         2.680000   0.000000   2.680000 (  2.690000)

| I tried to simulate the onmap() function in Squeak Smalltalk, a
| language which is also just interpreted, garbage-collected, 100%
| object oriented (and at least as cool as Ruby) and that system needs
| just 0.13 s for 100.000 calls

Impressive indeed. And Squak even has a reputation for being slow...

| I'd like to understand why Ruby is 100 times slower than the slowest
| Smalltalk.  VisualWorks Smalltalk needs just 20ms for 100.000 calls,
| BTW.

It is my understanding that Matz is working on improving the interpreter
regarding performance among other things. Aren't you Matz?

Implementations of SmallTalk have for obvious reasons optimized
message-passing since it affects the performance of the whole image.

| If it's just the interpreter, wouldn't it be an idea to implement Ruby
| on top of Squeak, using that obviously more sophisticated bytecode
| interpreter, garbage collector and runtime system?

Interesting idea.

Best regards,

Dennis Decker Jensen