This message is addressed to Forum members who are knowledgeable in statistics.
The objective is to test whether the same expression is faster, slower, or takes the same amount of time, on the two different versions of the interpreter. We know that due to vagaries of the operating system, the way interpreters are built (in particular the memory usage), the phase of the moon, ... the same expression will run in different times. Are the times "the same"? >From stat courses taken long ago and from consulting ancient stats texts, I get the idea that the following may be applicable: a. "Large-Sample Test" on the mean running time, with Z=(theta - theta0)%s_theta0 as the normally distributed statistic. b. "Small-Sample Test for Comparing Two Population Means", with T=(Y0 - Y1) % S * %: (%n0)+(%n1) as the t-distributed statistic. I believe what I want is a "Large-Sample Test for Comparing Two Population Means". (Large-Sample because I can run as many benchmarks as I like.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
