[DotGNU]PNetMark 0.0.1

[Rhys Weatherley]

In my quest to build a CLR with reasonable performance,
I've ported some parts of the CaffeineMark to C# to see
just how good (or bad) Portable.NET is at present.
Interested parties can download the code from here:

http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnetmark-0.0.1.tar.gz

You will need the latest CVS version of Portable.NET to run
this.  The 0.2.4 release is not sufficient.  The CVS version can
be obtained from savannah.gnu.org, as usual.

The README contains instructions for running the benchmark
using Portable.NET, as well as a rant from me on why you
should never trust the numbers you get from benchmarks. :-)

The CVS version of Portable.NET contains two engines for
x86 now: "ilrun" and "ilrun_opt".  The latter uses additional
optimisations on the interpreter to almost double the
performance of compute-bound tasks, as you'll see from the
benchmark numbers.  On non-x86 platforms, "ilrun" and
"ilrun_opt" will be identical, so you won't see any change.

Those who are interested in helping optimise the engine may
like to download and play with this on your system.  You may
get some ideas for improving performance.  As always, play
with the code and send me the patches for inclusion.

PNetMark is also the first "significant" application that runs
on Portable.NET.  Most of the core engine functionality is
in place, and realistic console applications can now be written.
I've got another significant application under development
that I hope to release in a few days.

Cheers,

Rhys.