Guile 2.2.4 vs Guile 1.8

[Jacques Menu]

Hello folks,

I’ve been curious about what the compilation provided by Guile 2.x leads to in 
terms of function calls speed.

Here are the results of tabulating the Ackermann function up to 'Ack (3, 10)' 
on my machine in various languages, with output like the one below.

The code for function Ack() is straightforward in all languages, no attempt is 
made to maximise speed with language-specific features. For example, in Guile 
and Lua:

(define (Ack m n)
  (if (= m 0)
    (+ n 1)
    (if (= n 0)
      (Ack (- m 1) 1)
      (Ack (- m 1) (Ack m (- n 1)))
    )
  )
)

function Ack (m, n)
  if (m == 0) then
    return n + 1
  else
    if (n == 0) then
      return Ack (m - 1, 1)
    else
      return Ack (m - 1, Ack (m, n - 1))
    end
  end
end

Times vary from run to run of course, but the figures give an idea.

I’d be interested in testing a small data-centric example, that would be 
typical of what LilyPond does frequently. Hints are welcome.

HTH, for what it's worth!

JM

—

C++ (clang version 11.0.0) :
  real  0m0.347s
  user  0m0.335s
  sys   0m0.010s

Swift 5.1.3 :
  real  0m0.648s
  user  0m0.544s
  sys   0m0.097s

Guile 2.2.4, compiled :
  real  0m1.184s
  user  0m1.146s
  sys   0m0.034s

Lua 5.3.5 :
  real  0m3.167s
  user  0m3.072s
  sys   0m0.082s

Guile 1.8 :
  real  0m9.460s
  user  0m8.841s
  sys   0m0.401s

Python 3.8.4 :
  real  0m14.888s
  user  0m12.111s
  sys   0m2.718s

--

menu@macbookprojm: ~/Lua/Ackermann > guile --version
guile (GNU Guile) 2.2.4
Copyright (C) 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

License LGPLv3+: GNU LGPL 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
menu@macbookprojm: ~/Lua/Ackermann > 


menu@macbookprojm: ~/Lua/Ackermann > time guile Ackermann.scm
"(Ack 1  1) =    3"
"(Ack 1  2) =    4"
"(Ack 1  3) =    5"
"(Ack 1  4) =    6"
"(Ack 1  5) =    7"
"(Ack 1  6) =    8"
"(Ack 1  7) =    9"
"(Ack 1  8) =   10"
"(Ack 1  9) =   11"
"(Ack 1 10) =   12"
"(Ack 2  1) =    5"
"(Ack 2  2) =    7"
"(Ack 2  3) =    9"
"(Ack 2  4) =   11"
"(Ack 2  5) =   13"
"(Ack 2  6) =   15"
"(Ack 2  7) =   17"
"(Ack 2  8) =   19"
"(Ack 2  9) =   21"
"(Ack 2 10) =   23"
"(Ack 3  1) =   13"
"(Ack 3  2) =   29"
"(Ack 3  3) =   61"
"(Ack 3  4) =  125"
"(Ack 3  5) =  253"
"(Ack 3  6) =  509"
"(Ack 3  7) = 1021"
"(Ack 3  8) = 2045"
"(Ack 3  9) = 4093"
"(Ack 3 10) = 8189"

real    0m1.184s
user    0m1.146s
sys     0m0.034s
menu@macbookprojm: ~/Lua/Ackermann >