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Erlang vs. Stackless Python: a first benchmark

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Re: Erlang vs. Stackless Python: a first benchmark

#12
post #3

not surprising that python is competitive...afaik haskell also crushes erlang in lightweight threading benchmarks (supposedly the core strength of erlang).

Fault-tolerance (uptime) is Erlang's core strength. Concurrency is just a pleasant and currently trendy side benefit.

Re: Erlang vs. Stackless Python: a first benchmark

#13
post #5

I don't think Stackless is nearly as well-known as it should be. It has a solid value proposition and is blazing fast in my experience as well.

Stackless is missing some important parts. I've spent a great deal of time working with it over the past few months, and there's no good SSL socket support. The built-in socket module will block the entire process (all tasklets), and while drop-in replacements exist, they either don't work with SSL, are buggy, or both.

Stackless also lacks Erlang's transparent support for multi-process and multi-machine execution, though I talked to a guy who's working on adding that for his Master's degree.

Re: Erlang vs. Stackless Python: a first benchmark

#14
post #5

I don't think Stackless is nearly as well-known as it should be. It has a solid value proposition and is blazing fast in my experience as well.

Stackless is missing some important parts. I've spent a great deal of time working with it over the past few months, and there's no good SSL socket support. The built-in socket module will block the entire process (all tasklets), and while drop-in replacements exist, they either don't work with SSL, are buggy, or both. Stackless also lacks Erlang's transparent support for multi-process and multi-machine execution, th…

I'll be the first to admit that http socket issues exist and drop-in replacements are indeed often buggy. That being said, this wouldn't be a huge issue to overcome were Stackless given more TLC. Regardless, it has many other valuable uses.

Re: Erlang vs. Stackless Python: a first benchmark

#16
post #3

not surprising that python is competitive...afaik haskell also crushes erlang in lightweight threading benchmarks (supposedly the core strength of erlang).

> afaik haskell also crushes erlang in lightweight threading

For some definition of "crushes"

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=thr...

But with quad-core Erlang processes float between cores slowing things down for sequential programs

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=th...

Re: Erlang vs. Stackless Python: a first benchmark

#17

Sounds like the thread-ring benchmark ( http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=thr... ) at the shootout. It benchmarks an Erlang program that isn't the first the author ever wrote , so its performance is probably more representative.

Yep - and both derive from this 10 year old measurement of context switching:

"Performance Measurements of Threads in Java and Processes in Erlang" http://www.sics.se/~joe/ericsson/du98024.html

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