[erlang-questions] Erlang Cost Model

[Eric des Courtis]

Regardless if concurrency and parallelism plays a role *I still need to
know if an operation in a sequential process I am working on is O(1) or
O(n)* or am I missing something?

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 12:17 AM, zxq9 <zxq9@REDACTED> wrote:

> On Wednesday 16 September 2015 19:25:41 Eric des Courtis wrote:
> > As a first step lets focus on the complexity of the operations (ignoring
> > any associated constants or specific time measurements). Just so
> newcomers
> > to Erlang can validate their assumptions.
> >
> > I will start:
> >
> > Adding to the beginning of a list is O(1)
> > Adding to the end of a list is O(n)
> >
> > Sending a large binary to another node is O(n)
> > Sending a large binary to other processes on the same node is O(1)
> >
> > etc...
>
> That is going to wind up reading very similarly to the cost model for any
> language that uses similar data structures and executes in a managed
> environment.
>
> And its not very useful.
>
> Here is why: "Just so newcomers to Erlang can validate their assumptions."
>
> Their assumptions are going to be totally invalid (which is different from
> being wrong) because using concurrent processes as a basic component of a
> model of computation is *a different model of computation* than these cost
> models assume. So whatever these "newcomer assumptions" are will not make
> sense in real programs, unless newcomers only write sequential Erlang
> programs.
>
> This is like trying to tune a violin by drum tempo or tune a drum to
> output from a spectroscope. Sure, each involves a "frequency", but the
> underlying concept is so different in each case they simply don't compare.
>
> The only place cost models make sense is:
> 1- Dealing with a technically ignorant bureaucracy that doesn't understand
> why this makes no sense, but have the power to can your project if you
> can't justify it to some Soviet standard
> 2- Trying to squeeze the last bit of performance out of a bottleneck you
> can't imagine a way around
>
> Case 1 is in error, as Erlang will fail in most competitions that measure
> sequential speed. Meh.
>
> Case 2 is generally in error as well, as the goal should usually be to
> avoid having bottlenecks to begin with, not making bottlenecks more
> performant. (There are standard answers for that one time when you really,
> genuinely need to make a pig fly.)
>
> The mapping of operations to cost in terms of scheduler reductions is the
> closest thing to a meaningful number I think there is. (If this is wrong
> someone please correct me or expand on this -- I am sort of curious, though
> only morbidly so. But don't go on and on about how l33t dirty schedulers
> and NIFs are.)
>
> In actual programs I've written (and am writing) that handle actual
> problems for actual users I've had to think about this exactly one time,
> ever, and that turned out to be a big fat waste of time once I stepped back
> and took a second look from above.
>
> What is the purpose of such a cost model? What is its use? Why is this
> needed?
>
> The concept is so different that I think this is probably a sort of X-Y
> problem. If, instead of asking for a cost model, the intended utility of
> the cost model were explained perhaps more useful things would start
> popping up on the ML.
>
> -Craig
> _______________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list
> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/attachments/20150917/b37dc42a/attachment.htm>