[Haskell-cafe] Re: Seeking reference(s) relating to FP performance

[John Goerzen]

On 2004-09-29, Graham Klyne <gk at ninebynine.org> wrote:
> I've taken it as an article of faith that performance of FP language 
> implementations has been improving quite steadily over the past few 
> years.  I'd like to assert this, but I can't find any clear evidence to 

One place to start is the Language Shootout at
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/.  While it is a benchmark, and
therefore subject to all sorts of standard disclaimers about rigged
benchmarks, some interesting conclusions can be seen:

1. OCaml often performs better than g++

2. OCaml sometimes even beats gcc.

3. ghc doesn't seem to do very well in terms of performance, though it
does at least beat out Java in many cases.

4. ghc has some of the most concise programs out there

There's not a lot of information there on historical trends, but the
fact that a mostly-functional language like OCaml can beat out c++ is
fairly impressive.

-- John

> I'm looking for a reference -- informal will be enough -- that can give an 
> perspective of progress in functional language implementation 
> performance.  I'm not looking for a single benchmark that shows a case of 
> blindingly-fast functional code, but a pointer to trends of improving 
> performance.  It would also serve my purpose to have indications based on 
> languages other than Haskell (e.g. ML and friends).
>
> Any ideas, please?
>
> #g
>
>
> ------------
> Graham Klyne
> For email:
> http://www.ninebynine.org/#Contact


-- 
John Goerzen
Author, Foundations of Python Network Programming
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590593715