[erlang-questions] Benchmarks

[Toby Thain]

On 11-Jan-10, at 10:00 PM, Henning Diedrich wrote:

>
>>> http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php? 
>>> test=all&lang=hipe&lang2=gcc
>>>
>>> Would you have bullet points for me as to how they might be  
>>> misleading or
>>> only a part of a bigger picture - or simply just so?
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot,
>>> Henning
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> they are irrelevant as none of those things are what Erlang is  
>> designed to
>> do REALLY WELL.
>>
> Certainly that's the expected defense. Could you spell that out  
> specifically? And, besides the Yaws / Mochi / Apache shoot outs,  
> are there current benchmarks or any metrics out there that show  
> results of which there is some agreement in the community that they  
> do measure something that IS relevant? And I mean that widely,  
> like, on average 1/4 of code vs. C.


The ratio usually quoted is 1/4 - 1/10 code size versus C-like  
languages. One way to answer all your questions is to actually  
prototype your problem in Erlang. Abstract benchmarks really are  
pretty useless, and in this case, are comparing Apples to very small  
rocks.

--Toby

> That'd be a valid point.
>
> Thanks,
> Henning