4 ms·

How is performance related to code quality. That makes no sense. If anything, if you had to inline ASM for example, the code would suffer from readability.

iainmerrick 8y ago
Shouldn’t good performance be one of the goals of good code?
- moviuro 8y ago
  Depends on the design goals. If you want secure code, you'll make it readable. Here's true(1): : A single "noop" in a 755 file. A C true would be: https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/true/true.c?rev=1.1&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/true/true.c?rev=1.1&c... Here's a much faster true(1) if you need it: https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/true.c https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/true....
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    I did say “one of the goals”. I don’t see how those examples are relevant. Why would that last one be faster? I agree that the OpenBSD code here is good, no more and no less than needed. I assumed the grandparent was referring to cases where an O(n) algorithm is used where it might be O(log n) or O(1) with just a little more effort. It’s a tradeoff, sure, and in some cases linear searches can work surprisingly well, but in general I think this kind of thing should always be considered in good code. Micro-optimizations like inline assembly for inner loops may or may not be a good idea, depending on the application. All else being equal, I’d certainly agree that good clean code would not use assembly.
  - josefx 8y ago
    How is the coreutils true faster? I would expect the openbsd true to be the fastest, it doesn't need to spawn a subshell and it doesn't do more than the posix specification requires (afaik --help/--version should be ignored).
    - moviuro 8y ago
      Experience shows it's faster. It's just weird, but it's like that. time { for i in $(seq 1 10000); do /path/to/true; done; }
      - iainmerrick 8y ago
        What are you comparing against what there? Two C executables with the same compiler flags on the same OS?
  - hultner 8y ago
    Is the gnu-coreutils true much faster? I have a hard time seeing how return 0 can be so slow.
rurban 8y ago
using comma seperated string splitting options over normal bits or'ed together in their public API looses all credibility in their engineering abilities. it would not survive any professional code review.

iainmerrick 8y ago

Shouldn’t good performance be one of the goals of good code?

moviuro 8y ago
Depends on the design goals. If you want secure code, you'll make it readable. Here's true(1): : A single "noop" in a 755 file. A C true would be: https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/true/true.c?rev=1.1&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/true/true.c?rev=1.1&c... Here's a much faster true(1) if you need it: https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/true.c https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/true....
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  I did say “one of the goals”. I don’t see how those examples are relevant. Why would that last one be faster? I agree that the OpenBSD code here is good, no more and no less than needed. I assumed the grandparent was referring to cases where an O(n) algorithm is used where it might be O(log n) or O(1) with just a little more effort. It’s a tradeoff, sure, and in some cases linear searches can work surprisingly well, but in general I think this kind of thing should always be considered in good code. Micro-optimizations like inline assembly for inner loops may or may not be a good idea, depending on the application. All else being equal, I’d certainly agree that good clean code would not use assembly.
- josefx 8y ago
  How is the coreutils true faster? I would expect the openbsd true to be the fastest, it doesn't need to spawn a subshell and it doesn't do more than the posix specification requires (afaik --help/--version should be ignored).
  - moviuro 8y ago
    Experience shows it's faster. It's just weird, but it's like that. time { for i in $(seq 1 10000); do /path/to/true; done; }
    - iainmerrick 8y ago
      What are you comparing against what there? Two C executables with the same compiler flags on the same OS?
- hultner 8y ago
  Is the gnu-coreutils true much faster? I have a hard time seeing how return 0 can be so slow.

rurban 8y ago

using comma seperated string splitting options over normal bits or'ed together in their public API looses all credibility in their engineering abilities. it would not survive any professional code review.