Hello,
Today I found that top level defines have a significant performance
impact on Guile (2.2.3). The following program takes about 108 seconds
to complete on my ThinkPad (an i5-5200U with Arch Linux):
(define node cons)
(define node-left car)
(define node-right cdr)
(define (make d)
(if (= d 0)
(node #f #f)
(let ([d2 (1- d)])
(node (make d2) (make d2)))))
(define (check t)
(if (node-left t)
(+ 1 (check (node-left t)) (check (node-right t)))
1))
(define (main n)
(define min-depth 4)
(define max-depth (max (+ min-depth 2) n))
(define stretch-depth (1+ max-depth))
(format #t "stretch tree of depth ~a\t check: ~a\n" stretch-depth
(check (make stretch-depth)))
(let ([long-lived-tree (make max-depth)])
(do ([d 4 (+ d 2)]) ([not (< d (1+ max-depth))])
(let ([iterations (ash 1 (+ (- max-depth d) min-depth))])
(format #t "~a\t trees of depth ~a\t check: ~a\n"
iterations
d
(let sum ([i iterations] [n 0])
(if (zero? i)
n
(sum (1- i) (+ n (check (make d)))))))))
(format #t "long lived tree of depth ~a\t check: ~a\n"
max-depth
(check long-lived-tree))))
(main 21)
By simply wrapping that code in a lambda the program finished in about
47 seconds. Using lets instead of defines is equally effective.
I was quite surprised because I initially thought some optimization
would just substitute those useless nodes symbols away, but it seems
like that's not the case...
Cheers!
