Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] second proposal of UChar, UTF8 modules

[Nicolas C. <war...@fr...>]

> > I do some benchmarks.  While the test repeating "buf.add_uchar 'a'
> > buf" and "buf.clear buf" shows 25% speed up, the more realistic test
> > that repeatedly puts 1K uchars into a buffer shows only 3% speed up.
> > Not a big deal, really.
>
> Yes it is. It is a big deal. Let me ask you something:
>
> would you give up 3% interest on an investment?
> would you give 3% of a year extra to your employer
> instead of holidays? That's about 11 days of holidays,
> which is two whole weeks .. around here that's the whole
> of your Xmas holdiday .. and over half your total holidays.

The thing here is that if we're sure to get a 3% improvement, then it's
perhaps worth it ( if the code doesn't get bigger - since for some people
space is more an issue than time - and if the source doesn't get ugly so it
can still be maintained , modified , etc. ).
But since hardware are different, memory issues and not-so-good process
timing, you can be pretty sure that this 3% is not relevent, and then a +3%
on Yamagata-san computer can be a -10% on my windows box for example :-)
Always be careful with micro benchmarks, watch the generated assembly code
(using ocamlopt -S) to be sure that this actually an optimisation !

Nicolas Cannasse