Julia vectorized code should certainly be as fast as Matlab and NumPy
vectorized code, and to the best of my knowledge, it already is. But
de-vectorized code will always have an advantage because you have low-level
control, and you can avoid temp variables.

Cheers,
Daniel.

On 19 October 2015 at 21:05, Phil Tomson <[email protected]> wrote:

> Several comments here about the need to de-vectorize code and use
> for-loops instead. However, vectorized code is a lot more compact and
> generally easier to read than lots of for-loops. I seem to recall that
> there was discussion in the past about speeding up vectorized code in Julia
> so that it could be on par with the vectorized code performance - is this
> still something being worked on for future versions?
>
> Otherwise, if we keep telling people that they need to convert their code
> to use for-loops, I think Julia isn't going to seem very compelling for
> people looking for alternatives to Matlab, R, etc.
>
> On Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 6:41:54 AM UTC-7, Daniel Carrera wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Other people have already given advice on how to speed up the code. I
>> just want to comment that Julia really is faster than Matlab, but the way
>> that you make code faster in Julia is almost the opposite of how you do it
>> in Matlab. Specifically, in Matlab the advice is that if you want the code
>> to be fast, you need to eliminate every loop you can and write vectorized
>> code instead. This is because Matlab loops are slow. But Julia loops are
>> fast, and vectorized code creates a lot of overhead in the form of
>> temporary variables, garbage collection, and extra loops. So in Julia you
>> optimize code by putting everything into loops. The upshot is that if you
>> take a Matlab-optimized program and just do a direct line-by-line
>> conversion to Julia, the Julia version can easily be slower. But by the
>> same token, if you took a Julia-optimized program and converted it
>> line-by-line to Matlab, the Matlab version would be ridiculously slow.
>>
>> Oh, and in Julia you also care about types. If the compiler can infer
>> correctly the types of your variables it will write more optimal code.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Daniel.
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, 18 October 2015 13:17:50 UTC+2, Vishnu Raj wrote:
>>>
>>> Although Julia homepage shows using Julia over Matlab gains more in
>>> performance, my experience is quite opposite.
>>> I was trying to simulate channel evolution using Jakes Model for
>>> wireless communication system.
>>>
>>> Matlab code is:
>>> function [ h, tf ] = Jakes_Flat( fd, Ts, Ns, t0, E0, phi_N )
>>> %JAKES_FLAT
>>> %   Inputs:
>>> %       fd, Ts, Ns  : Doppler frequency, sampling time, number of
>>> samples
>>> %       t0, E0      : initial time, channel power
>>> %       phi_N       : initial phase of the maximum Doppler frequeny
>>> %       sinusoid
>>> %
>>> %   Outputs:
>>> %       h, tf       : complex fading vector, current time
>>>
>>>     if nargin < 6,  phi_N = 0;  end
>>>     if nargin < 5,  E0 = 1;     end
>>>     if nargin < 4,  t0 = 0;     end
>>>
>>>     N0 = 8;         % As suggested by Jakes
>>>     N  = 4*N0 + 2;  % an accurate approximation
>>>     wd = 2*pi*fd;   % Maximum Doppler frequency[rad]
>>>     t  = t0 + [0:Ns-1]*Ts;  % Time vector
>>>     tf = t(end) + Ts;       % Final time
>>>     coswt = [ sqrt(2)*cos(wd*t); 2*cos(wd*cos(2*pi/N*[1:N0]')*t) ];
>>>     h  = E0/sqrt(2*N0+1)*exp(j*[phi_N pi/(N0+1)*[1:N0]])*coswt;
>>> end
>>> Enter code here...
>>>
>>> My call results in :
>>> >> tic; Jakes_Flat( 926, 1E-6, 50000, 0, 1, 0 ); toc
>>> Elapsed time is 0.008357 seconds.
>>>
>>>
>>> My corresponding Julia code is
>>> function Jakes_Flat( fd, Ts, Ns, t0 = 0, E0 = 1, phi_N = 0 )
>>> # Inputs:
>>> #
>>> # Outputs:
>>>   N0  = 8;                  # As suggested by Jakes
>>>   N   = 4*N0+2;             # An accurate approximation
>>>   wd  = 2*pi*fd;            # Maximum Doppler frequency
>>>   t   = t0 + [0:Ns-1]*Ts;
>>>   tf  = t[end] + Ts;
>>>   coswt = [ sqrt(2)*cos(wd*t'); 2*cos(wd*cos(2*pi/N*[1:N0])*t') ]
>>>   h = E0/sqrt(2*N0+1)*exp(im*[ phi_N pi/(N0+1)*[1:N0]']) * coswt
>>>   return h, tf;
>>> end
>>> # Saved this as "jakes_model.jl"
>>>
>>>
>>> My first call results in
>>> julia> include( "jakes_model.jl" )
>>> Jakes_Flat (generic function with 4 methods)
>>>
>>> julia> @time Jakes_Flat( 926, 1e-6, 50000, 0, 1, 0 )
>>> elapsed time: 0.65922234 seconds (61018916 bytes allocated)
>>>
>>> julia> @time Jakes_Flat( 926, 1e-6, 50000, 0, 1, 0 )
>>> elapsed time: 0.042468906 seconds (17204712 bytes allocated, 63.06% gc
>>> time)
>>>
>>> For first execution, Julia is taking huge amount of time. On second
>>> call, even though Julia take considerably less(0.042468906 sec) than
>>> first(0.65922234 sec), it's still much higher to Matlab(0.008357 sec).
>>> I'm using Matlab R2014b and Julia v0.3.10 on Mac OSX10.10.
>>>
>>> - vish
>>>
>>

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