in reply to "my" cost

For that degree of difference you are getting very close to meaningless values. Consider:

use Time::HiRes qw(time); my @results = (); push @results, [TimeIt()] for 1 .. 10; shift @results; # First result is polluted by startup processing @results = sort {$a->[0] <=> $b->[0]} @results; printf "Out: %.5f In: %.5f diff: %+.6f\n", @$_, $_->[1] - $_->[0] for + @results; printf "Out delta %f\n", $results[-1][0] - $results[0][0]; @results = sort {$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]} @results; printf "In delta %f\n", $results[-1][1] - $results[0][1]; sub TimeIt { my ($i); my $start = time; { my $x; for $i (1..1e6) { $x = 1; } } my $end = time; my $deltaOut = $end - $start; $start = time; for $i (1..1e6) { my $x = 1; } $end = time; my $deltaIn = $end - $start; return $deltaOut, $deltaIn; }

For one run prints:

Out: 0.01120 In: 0.01609 diff: +0.004889 Out: 0.01121 In: 0.01474 diff: +0.003521 Out: 0.01123 In: 0.01501 diff: +0.003781 Out: 0.01126 In: 0.01509 diff: +0.003836 Out: 0.01128 In: 0.01494 diff: +0.003654 Out: 0.01135 In: 0.01491 diff: +0.003559 Out: 0.01148 In: 0.01524 diff: +0.003761 Out: 0.01291 In: 0.01497 diff: +0.002066 Out: 0.01358 In: 0.01504 diff: +0.001458 Out delta 0.002376 In delta 0.001356

Note that the difference between the fastest and slowest "outside the loop" times was close to the difference between the individual test "inside loop" - "outside loop" times. This changes somewhat from run to run, but ultimately at this level your code's performance often depends more on external factors than the code itself.

Perhaps also note that my results are about a factor of two faster than your results so maybe you just need to buy a faster computer? That's not meant to be mean or snarky, but just to point out that micro optimisation of this sort can usually be beaten by either getting faster hardware or improving algorithms. You may be interested in Youtube - Matt Parker: Someone improved my code by 40,832,277,770% to see the extreme version of this comment!

Optimising for fewest key strokes only makes sense transmitting to Pluto or beyond

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Re^2: "my" cost
by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Aug 18, 2024 at 13:26 UTC

    micro optimisation of this sort can usually be beaten by either getting faster hardware or improving algorithms. You may be interested in Youtube - Matt Parker: Someone improved my code by 40,832,277,770% to see the extreme version of this comment!

    Spot on Gramps, especially improving algorithms! If you don't do that, your carefully micro optimized code will likely end up as a fast slow program.

    While your cited example of improving the running time from 32 days down to 0.006761 seconds is certainly extreme, it didn't really surprise me, after years (off and on) of becoming obsessed with performance challenges.

    As documented in gory detail here (see The 10**21 Problem links), I remember gasping in disbelief a few years back when, obsessively working alone, I eventually coaxed some complex code into running 50 million times faster. IIRC, it took me about a year and I remember being constantly surprised when one insight led to another ... and another ... and another. When you open up performance challenges to fierce competition (especially if marioroy is involved) expect astonishing things to happen. :-)

    👁️🍾👍🦟