Sure, there are perhaps modes that are slower, but my tests seem to
indicate that the 1/10 ratio is correct, or IOW that syntax-ppss is an
order of magnitude slower than opening the file.
You might be right.
But there are still significant differences between different major
modes:
LISP> (benchmark-run 1 (fundamental-mode) (parse-partial-sexp (point-min)
(point-max)))
(0.276774213 0 0.0)
LISP> (benchmark-run 1 (fundamental-mode) (syntax-ppss (point-max)))
(0.329234636 0 0.0)
ELISP> (benchmark-run 1 (emacs-lisp-mode) (syntax-ppss (point-max)))
(0.392759479 0 0.0)
ELISP> (benchmark-run 1 (js-mode) (syntax-ppss (point-max)))
(1.036089104 7 0.20054423700000001)
ELISP> (benchmark-run 1 (nxml-mode) (syntax-ppss (point-max)))
(1.169055192 7 0.15886504199999996)
ELISP> (benchmark-run 1 (cperl-mode) (syntax-ppss (point-max)))
(1.857638439 9 0.19724271499999996)
(this was in a 5MB buffer).