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Re: [Chicken-users] two minor tweaks to runtime.c


From: John Cowan
Subject: Re: [Chicken-users] two minor tweaks to runtime.c
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:51:30 -0400
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17)

Alaric Snell-Pym scripsit:

> If the supposed performance improvement can't be benchmarked, then
> it's pointless, as nobody will actually benefit from it. Any case
> where somebody can benefit from a performance improvement can be
> turned into a benchmark that consists of running the code that is sped
> up, and timing it.
>
> Benchmarks are like unit tests; they are snippets of code that perform
> some operation but, rather than testing correct responses, their
> emphasis is on testing resource usage.

Your clarification down-thread that a benchmark can be of any size makes
this comparison rather otiose.  Nobody is going to have a benchmark
suite that includes tests like these:

With patch #1234, application 'foo' runs in an acceptable 18 hours
rather than an intolerable 25 hours.  (Obviously the improvement has to
be nonlinear.)

With patch #2345, vectors larger than 2^40 elements show O(1) reference
behavior rather than not.

With patch #3456, systems running more than 25 million green threads are
able to make forward progress rather than thrashing.

And yet, tested in the necessary environment, these patches may be sound
and even necessary.

-- 
[W]hen I wrote it I was more than a little              John Cowan
febrile with foodpoisoning from an antique carrot       address@hidden
that I foolishly ate out of an illjudged faith          http://ccil.org/~cowan
in the benignancy of vegetables.  --And Rosta



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