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Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:20:52 +1100
Subject: Re: Python Front-end to GCC
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:57255

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 11:00 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> Given a sufficiently advanced static analyser, PyPy could probably
> special-case programs that do nothing. Then you're in a race to compare
> the speed at which the PyPy runtime environment can start up and do
> nothing, versus a stand-alone executable that has to start up and do
> nothing. If this is a benchmark that people care about, I suggest they
> need to get out more :-)

Like every benchmark, it has its uses. Just last week I was tinkering
with several high level languages in order to see which one would
start, do a fairly trivial task, and shut down, in the shortest space
of time. Why? Because I wanted that trivial task to be added to our
rapid-deployment sequence at a point where a human would be waiting on
it, and the task itself wasn't critical (it was an early-catcher for a
particular type of bug). Delaying my fellow developers by even one
second at that point would be unacceptable; the various options at my
disposal took anywhere from 250 to 750 ms (cold cache, which is what
matters) to run. Yes, I know a second isn't long. But I was trying to
sell a concept, and if I can say that it adds "practically no time" to
an interactive action, that's a lot better than even one second.
Considering that rapiding took about 1200ms (ish - again, cold cache)
previously, adding even just 250ms is noticeable. Benchmarking an
empty program would get very close to this actual real-world scenario.

(Eventually I merged the functionality into an unrelated script just
for the sake of saving on interpreter startup time.)

ChrisA