PCL benchmark

[Chris Burdorf <burdorf@rand-unix.ARPA>]

I just ran a simulation benchmark in PCL.  It is a queueing simulation.
To get it to run under PCL, I took the simulator from our own
object system called ERNIE and converted it into PCL.  I then converted
the queueing simulation into PCL.

The timings I got were as follows:


         Ernie 4 seconds
         PCL   30 seconds


ERNIE runs under PSL.  The version of PCL I have runs under AKCL.  


I found it interesting at the CLOS workshop that people shot down arguements
about C++ as being faster, because it is an entirely different language.  
Well, PSL is LISP, not the same dialect as COMMON LISP, but faster.  Nonetheless,
PSL is not 7.5 times faster than COMMON LISP.  ERNIE is just a much faster
object system than PCL.  In fact, compared to ERNIE, PCL looks like a real
dog.  I hope people are getting upset about this, because performance
is a BIG issue, especially for simulation.  


Clearly, PCL is a much nicer system to use than ERNIE, but not all of
the projects here can afford Dorados to just run toy simulations.  The
big simulations require big machines and efficient object systems.  If
people want PCL/CLOS to be used as a production system, serious performance
improvements will have to be made.  Otherwise, it will just be a nice toy.




Chris Burdorf

p.s. I could probably make my benchmark code available if anyone is 
interested.