From: David Chelimsky <dchelimsky@...>
Date: 2007-03-08T02:16:58+09:00
Subject: Re: A better benchmarking syntax (was: Automatic Benchmark Iterations)

On 3/7/07, Daniel Schierbeck <daniel.schierbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-03-07 at 23:18 +0900, Trans wrote:
> >
> > On Mar 7, 8:26 am, Daniel Schierbeck <daniel.schierb...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Reading Phrogz' post about automatic benchmark iterations, and then
> > > seeing Mauricios' lovely Adaptative Benchmark[1], I came to think we
> > > might need a friendlier syntax for benchmarks all together. Minutes
> > > later, I discovered that someone had almost the same idea as me[2].
> > > Anyway, I'd like to just throw it out here, and hear what you people
> > > think.
> > >
> > > The idea is to make benchmarks syntactically similar to the current
> > > Test::Unit test cases, e.g.
> > >
> > >   class SortBenchmark < Benchmark
> > >     def setup
> > >       @array = [1, 6, 2, 9, 4, 6, 2]
> > >     end
> > >
> > >     def teardown
> > >       @array = nil
> > >     end
> > >
> > >     def report_quicksort
> > >       @array.quicksort
> > >     end
> > >
> > >     def report_mergesort
> > >       @array.mergesort
> > >     end
> > >   end
> > >
> > > Automatic iteration could be added, either as a class method call or by
> > > creating a different base class (IterativeBenchmark?)
> > >
> > > So, what do y'all think? If I'm not the only one liking this, I might
> > > whip something up when I get some spare time...
> >
> > Cool! Go BDD with it:
> >
> >   benchmark "compare sorting methods" do
> >
> >     compare "quick sort"
> >       @array.quicksort
> >     end
> >
> >     compare "merge sort" do
> >       @array.mergesort
> >     end
> >
> >   end
> >
> > Or something like that.
>
> I must admit to being a great fan of RSpec, although the pace of API
> changes has thrown me off for now,

Thanks for being a fan. FWIW, the recent API changes are the last
significant ones. What's new in 0.8 will be the basis of 1.0.

Cheers,
David

> but I'm not sure this path is the
> best. I did actually think about it at first. The strength of Test::Unit
> is its simple syntax: just remember #setup, #teardown, and #test_*. I'd
> like to add the same simplicity to any new benchmarking system. I'll
> give it some more thought :)
>
> Any idea for a name? "benchmark" is unfortunately already taken...
>
>
> Cheers,
> Daniel
>
>
>