[ocaml-biz] OCaml performance vs. C#

[Brandon J. Van Every]

William D. Neumann wrote:
>
> I really know jack about C#, so there may be a simple, valid
> counterpoint,
> but if one looks at the recently revived language shootout
> <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/index.php>, C# ranks ahead
> of OCaml in
> raw speed.  So if we're going to claim that C# does not offer
> performance,
> we're going to have to come up with a valid explanation of
> why it ranks ahead of OCaml on that scorecard...

OOps, that's a little embarassing.  :-)

One possibility is it could be bad OCaml code that's running the tests,
and it could be improved.  So, we'd need to understand the benchmark and
see if we can do anything about it.  Before we go to press with "faster
than C#!"  :-)  Of course if we were Microsoft's marketing dept., we
*could* just say what we like.  :-) :-) :-)

If C# is in fact beating OCaml, even with good code, then we could bug
INRIA about it.  That would require some diplomacy though.  I don't know
that winning benchmarks is INRIA's priority.

OCaml did very well in the previous Shootouts a few years ago.
C# wasn't on the original Unix scorecard.
http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/craps.shtml

C# appeared on the Win32 scorecard.
http://dada.perl.it/shootout/craps.html
At that time, OCaml beat it.  OCaml also beat C++ and some C!

On the current shootout, at least OCaml is blowing the doors off of
Java.
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/craps.php


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
                                - Ed Mckenzie