Which programming languages are the fastest?

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/which-programming-languages-are-fastest.php

by hitechsites • 15 years ago

18 22 15 years ago

shootout.alioth.debian.org

Surprised that LISP is 20x faster than PHP or Perl in this benchmark (median times). It is even faster than Python and of course Ruby.

lvh• 15 years ago

I seem to remember that at one point, Pypy, Luajit and perhaps a Ruby interpreter were removed from the races.

Anyone have any details on why that happened? These destroyed my ability to link to the shootout as data for showing that languages don't matter as much as implementations do, a nuance many newbies miss :(

edsrzf• 15 years ago

The benchmark game now only shows one implementation per language. The reasons aren't very satisfying IMO, but see this thread:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.pypy/7303/focus=73...

igouy8• 15 years ago

If you want "the reasons" see the Help page -

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/help.php#implementationx

skymt• 15 years ago

You can still point to gcc vs CINT to make that point dramatically.

The help page has your answer, anyway. "Because I want to do fewer chores not more!" http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/help.php

igouy8• 15 years ago

It's kind-of fun having "C" at both the top and bottom of a performance table -

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/compare.php?lang=cint

But let's note that here CINT is only being used as a C interpreter but a CINT script can call compiled classes/functions and compiled code can make callbacks to CINT interpreted functions - which I'm sure you understand would make it a lot faster.

angusgr8• 15 years ago

As the page says, "No. Which programming language implementations have the fastest benchmark programs?"

Which begs the question - aside from macho bragging rights, exactly what good is this kind of information?

Assume I did have a specific problem case for which performance in terms of memory, time or LoC mattered. As a first step, I'd write a specific benchmarkable implementation of my own problem (or one very like it.) Then I'd need to profile and optimise that implementation in my chosen language(s), as well as stop and think laterally about ways I might be able to optimise around that specific problem.

This is all assuming I'm working on a greenfields project where I have absolute free choice of language & runtime environment. Which happens for my personal projects, but never yet for a professional one.

Not to mention that in all other cases apart from this hypothetical where performance matters, I would take the most human-readable program over the most fast, lean or concise one.

Long story short, at no point can I see myself stopping and saying to myself. "You know what I need now? I need to see which programming language can generate a Mandelbrot set bitmap with the smallest memory footprint, without using any 'unfair' optimisation techniques."

njharman• 15 years ago

Exactly, I can't believe (what seems like a) majority of developers are still talking about language performance (and optimization). It matters for a small subsegment of our industry. The rest, speed/cost to implement and maintain far outweigh raw language performance.

angusgr8• 15 years ago

Yes! Also, even when you do care about performance, general performance isn't ever the same as specific performance.

You have to optimise to your use case, not some arbitrary general use case like "render a Mandelbrot set" or "calculate pi". If I have a slow On^2 Erlang algorithm, then I'm a lot better off looking at ways to rewrite it as Olog(n) instead of scrapping Erlang and moving to Java because it had a better score on the programming language shootout.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

It matters sometimes.

A while back, I wrote a program to solve a puzzle. The more complex the puzzle, the longer it took to solve. Today, I might come up with a better algorithm, but back then, all I could find was a brute-force approach. The most complex puzzle I had seen at the time was taking hours to run.

The program was written in VB6, and it was just wasn't mean for CPU-intensive programs like that. If I were to write that program again today, I'd be looking at optimizing the code for speed, starting with the language.

So yes, the question -does- matter. Sometimes.

angusgr8• 15 years ago

Today, I might come up with a better algorithm, but back then, all I could find was a brute-force approach. The most complex puzzle I had seen at the time was taking hours to run.

I bet that you could come up with a better algorithm now, even in VB6 if you had to, to get the run time down. I've seen people take "optimised" C solutions that run in hours and make them run in minutes, just by rewriting the algorithm and rethinking basic assumptions.

igouy8• 15 years ago

(I often get this wrong: "beg the question - assume the truth of a proposition needing proof.")

> ... I would take the most human-readable program over the most fast, lean or concise one

And some people do look at the source code for 2 dozen languages.

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/help.php#why

angusgr8• 15 years ago

You're entirely correct on both counts. In fact, all 3 of those reasons given on that page are good ones.

However, this was still posted under the title "Which programming language is the fastest?" - so I think it's worth exploring in exactly what ways that is or isn't useful information. Just as their own reason #3 says - "To show how difficult it can be to make meaningful comparisons"

I'd also question exactly how useful reading toy benchmark solution code is to real problems. The code to the benchmark problems is often nicely written, but if I have a problem to solve then wouldn't I be better off looking for samples of readable code that solve problems related to my specific problem domain?

hitechsites• 15 years ago

While one specific benchmark may not sway your decision on which programming language to use for your own projects, it should certainly be a factor when designing a large web application for hundreds of thousands of users. Unless of course you say that benchmarks are irrelevant and do not measure anything that corresponds to real world performance. But that would be like saying it does not matter whether you use a bicycle, a car, or a jet engine to travel from Point A to Point B, since intrinsic speed of your choice mode of transportation is difficult to measure, and is irrelevant.

angusgr8• 15 years ago

Sure, but the benchmark has to fit the use case. If you're designing a large web application, find benchmarks for large web applications or write benchmark cases yourself that match the use cases you're going to see and think you need to optimise for.

Which programming languages are the fastest?

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