Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of ass, inc... ass: 1 wallclock secs ( 1.13 usr + 0.00 sys = 1.13 CPU) @ 884955.75/s (n=1000000) inc: 2 wallclock secs ( 1.93 usr + 0.01 sys = 1.94 CPU) @ 515463.92/s (n=1000000)