HIPE'd stdlib modules rule !!!

[Kostis Sagonas]

I've sent the following yesterday, but the Erlang mailing list was down.
Apologies if it shows up again.

Kostis.

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Eric Newhuis wrote:
  >
  > My app was slow, relatively speaking ~ 20% CPU on an arbitrary peice of
  > iron.
  >
  > I HIPE'd the orddict.beam file (erlc +native orddict.beam) and now the
  > same app is fast, relatively speaking ~ 5% CPU on that same arbitrary
  > peice of iron.
  >
  > Is there an Erlang Makefile option I missed that HIPEs everything?  Or
  > have I stumbled onto something new?

Currently, there is not something that does what you are looking for
automatically.  The closest thing to this is to manually edit the
src/Makefile of the directory you want to compile to native code
and add a +native option in a line that reads:

ERL_COMPILE_FLAGS += ...

  > Were there former recommendations against HIPEing the standard
  > Erlang library modules?

Not as far as I know.  There should not be.  Currently, there are
not compiled to native code by default mostly to preserve backwards
compatibility and to minimize the number of possible surprises to
the user, whether these are positive (i.e. increased performance),
or negative (changes in observable behaviour; e.g. no debugging).


  > Now that I've got this performance kicker I don't want to go back
  > to the non-HIPE'd modules.

Good for you!

  > Am I cutting against the grain?  Will Armstrong hunt me down?

I do not want to speak for Joe, but I cannot see why he would be
interested in doing something like that...


Kostis Sagonas   (for the HiPE group).