[racket] Rookie Question on Functional Languages

On Thu, Dec 09, 2010 at 12:51:12PM -0600, Luke Jordan wrote:
> Here's a rookie question that stems from HtDP 29.3.2.
> 
> The idea is to test an expression a number of times while timing it and
> compare to another version of the same function.

There are practical problems:

Timers on computers are ofen not accurate, especially if any pther 
processes are running, when it can be difficult to distinguish your CPU 
time from theirs.

Times on some computers have even been found to 
run backward occasionally.

And there's garbage-collection time, which happens now and then.  The 
amound of garbage collection effort your code causes shouls also be 
measured, even tuough it might happen after your code is finished.

-- hendrik