Erlang to external app interfaces

[Chris Osgood]

I know there are a few different ways to hook Erlang to non-Erlang 
applications.  I'm curious about the performance of each.

The regular ports stuff seems kinda slow since it uses a regular network 
connection.  This method is "clean" though.

Then you have linked-in drivers.  This seems faster than regular ports, 
but how fast is it?  As fast as a BIF, or is there some "port" overhead? 
 This method is mostly clean.

And finally, you have BIF's.  It was very easy to add my own BIF's to 
Erlang, and I assume these are pretty fast.  In fact, for an Erlang 
newbie like me, it was easier than doing a linked-in driver.  This 
method is not as clean as using ports because you are changing the 
Erlang core.

Am I missing another technique?  Is there another way besides the BIF's 
to link right into the Erlang core for maximum performance? Are 
linked-in drivers just as fast?

Which is _the_ fastest method?  I need not only fast function calls, but 
lots of bandwidth for passing data too.

Thanks!

--
// Chris