[racket-dev] An implementation of 'case' based on Clinger's "Rapid Case Dispatch in Scheme"

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 4:33 PM, Jon Zeppieri <zeppieri at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> However, it's possible that I was wrong about the cause of the bold
> time difference. Today I updated my 'case-v3' branch with the changes
> that have been committed to the plt master branch since the two
> diverged, and I separately cloned the current plt master to a
> different directory. (Previously, I had been using a tarball as the
> control.) And I started running the build tests again. That's still
> going on, but so far, the preliminary results are the opposite of the
> ones from the other day. My 'case-v3' branch tends to build slightly
> faster.
>
> Obviously, there are any number of things that can account for the
> build time difference: background processes eating up CPU, physical
> file location on disk, etc. If the numbers continue to come out as
> they are now, I'll just conclude that the build time really isn't
> significantly affected one way or the other.


The Numbers

Summary: it's a wash, as far as I can tell. I no longer think that the
new case implementation is a performance problem for building racket
code. I would like to test runtime performance on real-world programs,
too, as Eli suggests.

A. raco setup

time raco setup [with a "raco setup -c" between each build, of course]
========================
Current 'case'

Build #1
real	21m48.942s
user	42m3.813s
sys	24m19.049s

Build #2
real	21m59.107s
user	41m41.311s
sys	24m25.283s

Build #4
real	21m44.930s
user	41m33.061s
sys	23m52.597s

Build #5
real	21m41.810s
user	41m44.639s
sys	23m49.387s

Build #6
real	21m53.944s
user	41m48.191s
sys	23m57.606s
------------------------------
Current 'case' summary

Average
real   21m49.75s
user  41m46.2s
sys   24m04.78s

Max
real   21m59.11s
user  42m03.81s
sys   24m25.28s

Min
real   21m41.81s
user  41m33.06s
sys   23m49.39s

Deviation
real   17.3s
user  30.75s
sys   35.9s


========================
Clinger 'case'

Build #1
real	21m47.926s
user	41m42.205s
sys	24m10.360s

Build #2
real	22m4.643s
user	41m36.205s
sys	24m20.108s

Build #3
real	22m1.669s
user	41m45.768s
sys	24m18.989s

Build #4
real	21m52.921s
user	41m51.076s
sys	24m11.115s

Build #5
real	21m51.656s
user	41m37.121s
sys	23m56.040s
------------------------------
Clinger 'case' summary

Average
real  21:55.76
user 41:32.68
sys  24:11.32

Max
real  22:04.93
user 41:51.08
sys  24:20.11

Min
real  21:47.93
user 40:43.73
sys  23:56.04

Deviation
real  17
user 1:07.34
sys  24.07


B. raco build

** for the tests below, I took the times of the second run of the test
for each implementation to prime the FS cache

1) time ( for i in {1..10} ; do  rm compiler/compiled/zo-parse_rkt.zo;
raco make compiler/zo-parse.rkt ; done )

current
real	0m9.684s
user	0m7.533s
sys	0m1.696s

clinger
real	0m9.556s
user	0m7.376s
sys	0m1.670s


2) time ( for i in {1..10} ; do  rm
racket/private/compiled/serialize_rkt.zo; raco make
racket/private/serialize.rkt ; done )

current
real	0m6.142s
user	0m4.668s
sys	0m1.166s

clinger
real	0m6.132s
user	0m4.607s
sys	0m1.161s


3) time ( for i in {1..10} ; do  rm racket/compiled/pretty_rkt.zo;
raco make racket/pretty.rkt ; done )

current
real	0m7.582s
user	0m6.029s
sys	0m1.143s

clinger
real	0m7.527s
user	0m6.093s
sys	0m1.158s

4) time ( for i in {1..10} ; do  rm racket/compiled/unit_rkt.zo; raco
make racket/unit.rkt ; done )

current
real	0m26.014s
user	0m22.865s
sys	0m2.679s

clinger
real	0m26.073s
user	0m22.904s
sys	0m2.698s

5) time ( for i in {1..10} ; do  rm
scribble/compiled/latex-render_rkt.zo; raco make
scribble/latex-render.rkt ; done )
[ comparatively heavy use of 'case']

current
real	0m9.070s
user	0m7.255s
sys	0m1.550s

clinger
real	0m8.705s
user	0m6.959s
sys	0m1.467s


6) time ( for i in {1..10} ; do  rm
plot/plot2d/compiled/plot-area_rkt.zo; raco make
plot/plot2d/plot-area.rkt ; done )
[no case expressions in source]

current
real	0m14.172s
user	0m11.326s
sys	0m2.516s

clinger
real	0m13.910s
user	0m11.088s
sys	0m2.480s


C. Runtime performance

I only have one test so far: a test of a partial markdown parser. The
parser is implemented in typed racket. The test of the parser is in
untyped racket.