Hi,
I am wondering is there any inherent reason why sbcl seems to generate
much faster code on the programming language shootout compared to
scheme the compilers? I have an application where I am somewhat
concerned about performance and is somewhat critical in selecting
between scheme and cl-lisp
Thanks in advance,
Carter.
On 31 ago, 19:27, Carter <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am wondering is there any inherent reason why sbcl seems to generate
> much faster code on the programming language shootout compared to
> scheme the compilers?
Nope, it's all about implementations. The best Scheme in the shootout
is Ikarus, a new R6RS-compliant native code generator. The rest are
all interpreters (except for Chicken, which is popular but not really
all that great a native compiler). I'm sure there'll be plenty joy to
be expected from Ikarus sometime, but it still can't compete in
performance with Gambit, Bigloo and Stalin, which are all strangely
missing from the competition.
Bigloo gets performance when you sprinkle type declarations all around
the code. Stalin gets it by whole-program compilation with agressive
analysis and type inference. They should both be in there.
Stalin is amazing, though only mostly-R4RS-compliant with no bignums,
it *is* one of the most agressive compilers out there and is able to
trounce even g++ performance sometimes. OTOH, it should only be used
last in the production pipeline as it's quite a slow compiler.
> I have an application where I am somewhat
> concerned about performance and is somewhat critical in selecting
> between scheme and cl-lisp
Performance has little to do with language of choice, as Stalin
shows. Choose another reason to go either way, like smallness vs army-
knife or hygiene vs filth...