9 ms·

Compiled JavaScript with NectarJS can be faster than Node.js and C

36 points by seraum 10y ago

lorenzhs 10y ago
That the C code is compiled with "gcc -O7" tells me just about everything I need to know about the soundness of these experiments. "-O3" and "-Ofast" are the highest optimisation levels, where "-Ofast" includes optimisations that break some standard-compliant programs (mostly -ffast-math). Not to mention that comparing running times for a single run on an unspecified machine isn't "benchmarking".
- mbel 10y ago
  Yeah, it's hardly a benchmark. The information what kind of CPU they are using is also missing (why no -march=native?). Despite how unbelievable it looks, I would love to see contents of the final binary to see what is really happening there. gcc code looks quite alright in this case: https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup
  - gus_massa 10y ago
    My totally unsupported guess is that they detect pure functions and add implicit memoization. It is relative easy to implement, has good benchmark times if N is big enough but not too big to make the trick obvious, but under the hood it use more memory than you expected.
- tempodox 10y ago
  "Faster than C" will be bogus 99.9% of the time no matter how fake or stupid your "benchmark" is.
easytiger 10y ago
Or, the code gets tail recursion optimized, turned into an iterative solution whilst the c code is recursive? If it was doing the same thing its unlikely to be faster.
- Athas 10y ago
  Turning the recursive formulation of the Fibonacci function into an iterative loop is not easy for a compiler (unless you just program that specific pattern into it). However, this "benchmark" is totally dominated by function call overhead, and it's quite conceivable that you can engineer your compiler to optimise for that case at the expense of others. You could do it quickly enough by unrolling the recursion a few times. This can cause the code to balloon in size in the general case, but not for this simple case. It's also not particularly impressive to optimise a Javascript program that does not exhibit any complex behaviour. Again, you can just write a compiler that detects whether the Javascript program is straightforward, and if so, turns it into C or whatnot. Without being able to see what the compiler is doing, there is no way to know. Also, "Compiler as a Service" may be a good idea for some cases (like farming an aggressively optimising but very slow compiler off to the cloud), but as the default case? No way.
CJefferson 10y ago
gcc should just add a 'remove fibonnaci' optimisation pass, that just optimises this away entirely, and stop people using this benchmark. This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of -- I'm going to be really mean now. They want me to use a compiler remotely, every time I want to recompile? So if their servers go down, or my internet connection goes down, I can't even run my compiler? And they have all the source code I've ever compiled? And their evidence for their amazing super-awesome compiler is... optimising fibonnaci? Which their compiler (any compiler) could easily be detecting and special-casing? (I'm surprised more don't actually).
- inglor 10y ago
  I came here to leave this comment and found you. Thanks. This is not a benchmark on any regard. I thought we were past the stage of optimizing to specific microbenchmarks and then showcasing those. If you're not going to show me real performance, at least show me Octane https://chromium.github.io/octane/ https://chromium.github.io/octane/ or something similar. Finbonacci is utterly meaningless. Here, my language does Fibonacci(45) in 0.001 seconds, it compiles any output to the python code `print 1134903170`.
- fdej 10y ago
  gcc already optimises away loops like for (i = 0; i < n; i++) s += i; It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to detect and optimise away code that computes linearly recurrent sequences.
  - mbel 10y ago
    gcc removes recursion in that case: https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup
- striking 10y ago
  Maybe they've never heard of the Community vs. Enterprise licensing schemes before. Also, I find it amusing that they think compilation is an attractive feature to people on RasPis and smartphones, when those devices can already just directly run JS. If this worked (which I'm still not convinced of), it would really only be of use to high-performance server writers. edit: also, iirc, Haskell can reduce out a fibonacci sequence if you pass it a constant
philplckthun 10y ago
"Compiler as a Service" I think that says enough about this project unfortunately. Why would I want to compile aanything, specifically JavaScript, "in the cloud"?! Also, "Tail recursion optimisation as a service"?
- nikitoz 10y ago
  Subscribe for debug build feature just for $99.99/month!
smarx007 10y ago
So, it's just caching the return values of the method calls? I thought applying dynamic programming to fibonacci numbers was algo 101? And what is -O7 level? Or, better, O7 lvl? :) Dynamic version of 45th fibonacci number (see http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/program-for-nth-fibonacci-number/ http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/program-for-nth-fibonacci-numbe...) has the following runtime: ᐅ gcc -O2 fib.c -o fib && time ./fib 1134903170 ./fib 0.00s user 0.00s system 49% cpu 0.005 total
staticelf 10y ago
A compiler is software that IMHO really should not be SAAS. I don't want to pay monthly for everything in my life. Honestly, I want to pay a monthly fee for as little as possible. The worst part of it all is what happens if you go out of business and I've build an entire product with "NectarJS"? Can't I even compile the code then? NodeJS already is fast, and if one really needs something faster maybe use something else than javascript?
quickben 10y ago
The only thing that can be concluded with absolute certanity, is that they want $30k.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
doubleplusgood 10y ago
Feels like a premature April 1st launch
tannhaeuser 10y ago
Compiler-as-a-service is certainly disappointing. He should benchmark vs the nexe [1] and (commercial) EncloseJS [2] JavaScript compilers (both grabbing V8's untraced/unoptimized initial translation to x86_64 as I understand). [1]: https://github.com/nexe/nexe https://github.com/nexe/nexe [2]: http://enclosejs.com/ http://enclosejs.com/
hoodoof 10y ago
Can be faster than assembler!
ht85 10y ago
You had me at "faster than C"
feduzi 10y ago
Srsly fellas, do not back this shit! It is not a joke! Idea (to have a compiler that compiles JS to a "native" binary) is good, but this "give me your money" and "cloud" stuff should be annihilated. IMHO Fibonacci benchmarks are doodoo.
- tannhaeuser 10y ago
  While I personally wouldn't buy it if I can help it, I don't see a problem with commercially offering compilers per se. The thing I'm having trouble with is potential injection of code (backdoors, etc.) and other security concerns, eg. if a customer of yours is having an imminent issue with your product, you're dependent on the third party tool provider.
  - feduzi 10y ago
    I agree that "tool" (in this case compiler) as a service is OK. You're also correct about "trust" aspect (that's what I've meant by "cloud" stuff). Also In the FAQ on Kickstarter page it says that you'll be able to have your own "Nectar" server, so you don't depend on "Nectar" cloud. But look at it seriously... 32k USD for a thing that will be probably faced with an open-source (and possibly free) solution. The amount of "pay me money" features and bullshit: * ecological * pay to vote * Fibonacci benchmark claiming to be faster than C * claiming to work but actually fails to compile this JS code (as mentioned by johhny in the comments to the article http://blog.seraum.com/compiled-javascript-with-nectarjs-can-be-faster-than-nodejs-and-c#comment-3219075399 http://blog.seraum.com/compiled-javascript-with-nectarjs-can...): var hello = {foo: "Hello, world!"}; console.log(hello["foo"]);
yamafaktory 10y ago
Everything looks like a scam, see that one, for example, https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/issues/1 https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/issues/1 ... and it's getting worse if you dive deep in the source code...
- slang800 10y ago
  More importantly, that source-code isn't the compiler - it just makes calls to the server that runs the compiler: https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/blob/master/nectar.js#L521 https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/blob/master/nectar.js#L52.... We don't even get to see how the compiler works, much less use it to debug when things go wrong.
rpcope1 10y ago
If there wasn't enough reason to doubt this already, this guy did a pretty good write-up: https://www.reddit.com/r/programmingcirclejerk/comments/5y72mk/javascripts_god_mode/dep0bda/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programmingcirclejerk/comments/5y72...

36 points by seraum 10y ago

That the C code is compiled with "gcc -O7" tells me just about everything I need to know about the soundness of these experiments. "-O3" and "-Ofast" are the highest optimisation levels, where "-Ofast" includes optimisations that break some standard-compliant programs (mostly -ffast-math). Not to mention that comparing running times for a single run on an unspecified machine isn't "benchmarking".

mbel 10y ago
Yeah, it's hardly a benchmark. The information what kind of CPU they are using is also missing (why no -march=native?). Despite how unbelievable it looks, I would love to see contents of the final binary to see what is really happening there. gcc code looks quite alright in this case: https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup
- gus_massa 10y ago
  My totally unsupported guess is that they detect pure functions and add implicit memoization. It is relative easy to implement, has good benchmark times if N is big enough but not too big to make the trick obvious, but under the hood it use more memory than you expected.
tempodox 10y ago
"Faster than C" will be bogus 99.9% of the time no matter how fake or stupid your "benchmark" is.

easytiger 10y ago

Or, the code gets tail recursion optimized, turned into an iterative solution whilst the c code is recursive? If it was doing the same thing its unlikely to be faster.

Athas 10y ago
Turning the recursive formulation of the Fibonacci function into an iterative loop is not easy for a compiler (unless you just program that specific pattern into it). However, this "benchmark" is totally dominated by function call overhead, and it's quite conceivable that you can engineer your compiler to optimise for that case at the expense of others. You could do it quickly enough by unrolling the recursion a few times. This can cause the code to balloon in size in the general case, but not for this simple case. It's also not particularly impressive to optimise a Javascript program that does not exhibit any complex behaviour. Again, you can just write a compiler that detects whether the Javascript program is straightforward, and if so, turns it into C or whatnot. Without being able to see what the compiler is doing, there is no way to know. Also, "Compiler as a Service" may be a good idea for some cases (like farming an aggressively optimising but very slow compiler off to the cloud), but as the default case? No way.

CJefferson 10y ago

gcc should just add a 'remove fibonnaci' optimisation pass, that just optimises this away entirely, and stop people using this benchmark. This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of -- I'm going to be really mean now. They want me to use a compiler remotely, every time I want to recompile? So if their servers go down, or my internet connection goes down, I can't even run my compiler? And they have all the source code I've ever compiled? And their evidence for their amazing super-awesome compiler is... optimising fibonnaci? Which their compiler (any compiler) could easily be detecting and special-casing? (I'm surprised more don't actually).

inglor 10y ago
I came here to leave this comment and found you. Thanks. This is not a benchmark on any regard. I thought we were past the stage of optimizing to specific microbenchmarks and then showcasing those. If you're not going to show me real performance, at least show me Octane https://chromium.github.io/octane/ https://chromium.github.io/octane/ or something similar. Finbonacci is utterly meaningless. Here, my language does Fibonacci(45) in 0.001 seconds, it compiles any output to the python code `print 1134903170`.
fdej 10y ago
gcc already optimises away loops like for (i = 0; i < n; i++) s += i; It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to detect and optimise away code that computes linearly recurrent sequences.
- mbel 10y ago
  gcc removes recursion in that case: https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup https://godbolt.org/g/R6iBup
striking 10y ago
Maybe they've never heard of the Community vs. Enterprise licensing schemes before. Also, I find it amusing that they think compilation is an attractive feature to people on RasPis and smartphones, when those devices can already just directly run JS. If this worked (which I'm still not convinced of), it would really only be of use to high-performance server writers. edit: also, iirc, Haskell can reduce out a fibonacci sequence if you pass it a constant

philplckthun 10y ago

"Compiler as a Service" I think that says enough about this project unfortunately. Why would I want to compile aanything, specifically JavaScript, "in the cloud"?! Also, "Tail recursion optimisation as a service"?

nikitoz 10y ago
Subscribe for debug build feature just for $99.99/month!

smarx007 10y ago

So, it's just caching the return values of the method calls? I thought applying dynamic programming to fibonacci numbers was algo 101? And what is -O7 level? Or, better, O7 lvl? :) Dynamic version of 45th fibonacci number (see http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/program-for-nth-fibonacci-number/ http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/program-for-nth-fibonacci-numbe...) has the following runtime: ᐅ gcc -O2 fib.c -o fib && time ./fib 1134903170 ./fib 0.00s user 0.00s system 49% cpu 0.005 total

staticelf 10y ago

A compiler is software that IMHO really should not be SAAS. I don't want to pay monthly for everything in my life. Honestly, I want to pay a monthly fee for as little as possible. The worst part of it all is what happens if you go out of business and I've build an entire product with "NectarJS"? Can't I even compile the code then? NodeJS already is fast, and if one really needs something faster maybe use something else than javascript?

quickben 10y ago

The only thing that can be concluded with absolute certanity, is that they want $30k.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

doubleplusgood 10y ago

Feels like a premature April 1st launch

tannhaeuser 10y ago

Compiler-as-a-service is certainly disappointing. He should benchmark vs the nexe [1] and (commercial) EncloseJS [2] JavaScript compilers (both grabbing V8's untraced/unoptimized initial translation to x86_64 as I understand). [1]: https://github.com/nexe/nexe https://github.com/nexe/nexe [2]: http://enclosejs.com/ http://enclosejs.com/

hoodoof 10y ago

Can be faster than assembler!

ht85 10y ago

You had me at "faster than C"

feduzi 10y ago

Srsly fellas, do not back this shit! It is not a joke! Idea (to have a compiler that compiles JS to a "native" binary) is good, but this "give me your money" and "cloud" stuff should be annihilated. IMHO Fibonacci benchmarks are doodoo.

tannhaeuser 10y ago
While I personally wouldn't buy it if I can help it, I don't see a problem with commercially offering compilers per se. The thing I'm having trouble with is potential injection of code (backdoors, etc.) and other security concerns, eg. if a customer of yours is having an imminent issue with your product, you're dependent on the third party tool provider.
- feduzi 10y ago
  I agree that "tool" (in this case compiler) as a service is OK. You're also correct about "trust" aspect (that's what I've meant by "cloud" stuff). Also In the FAQ on Kickstarter page it says that you'll be able to have your own "Nectar" server, so you don't depend on "Nectar" cloud. But look at it seriously... 32k USD for a thing that will be probably faced with an open-source (and possibly free) solution. The amount of "pay me money" features and bullshit: * ecological * pay to vote * Fibonacci benchmark claiming to be faster than C * claiming to work but actually fails to compile this JS code (as mentioned by johhny in the comments to the article http://blog.seraum.com/compiled-javascript-with-nectarjs-can-be-faster-than-nodejs-and-c#comment-3219075399 http://blog.seraum.com/compiled-javascript-with-nectarjs-can...): var hello = {foo: "Hello, world!"}; console.log(hello["foo"]);

yamafaktory 10y ago

Everything looks like a scam, see that one, for example, https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/issues/1 https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/issues/1 ... and it's getting worse if you dive deep in the source code...

slang800 10y ago
More importantly, that source-code isn't the compiler - it just makes calls to the server that runs the compiler: https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/blob/master/nectar.js#L521 https://github.com/seraum/nectarjs/blob/master/nectar.js#L52.... We don't even get to see how the compiler works, much less use it to debug when things go wrong.

rpcope1 10y ago

If there wasn't enough reason to doubt this already, this guy did a pretty good write-up: https://www.reddit.com/r/programmingcirclejerk/comments/5y72mk/javascripts_god_mode/dep0bda/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programmingcirclejerk/comments/5y72...