4 ms·

Hello World Executable Sizes in 18 Languages

13 points by mqt 18y ago

jws 18y ago
It would be interesting to also see how much RAM was used to run Hello World, but then I'd want to also know how much was shared with other programs, shared between instances of this program, and not shared... it would probably get out of hand.
gertburger 18y ago
It seem like the author does not differentiate between compiled (To machine code) and (To intermediate/byte code). Does that mean the pyc(114 bytes on my machine) generated by python for 'print "Hello world"' can be compared to the others? It is still interesting though.
- aniketh 18y ago
  don't forget you would have to add a shebang line to make it truly executable
  - smcdow 18y ago
    Not really: $ echo 'echo $0' > 'Hello, world!' $ chmod +x 'Hello, world!' $ 'Hello, world!' Hello, world! $ wc 'Hello, World!' 1 2 8 Hello, world! 8 bytes. I think that's probably as small as you can get.
    - smcdow 18y ago
      Oh, brother, formatting.<p> <pre> $ echo 'echo $0' > 'Hello, world!' $ chmod +x 'Hello, world!' $ 'Hello, world!' Hello, world! $ wc 'Hello, World!' 1 2 8 Hello, world! </pre>
huhtenberg 18y ago
The size of D executable - 230K - is a quite big surprise.
Zak 18y ago
In some of these cases, I suspect the main difference is related to how the language's runtime libraries are linked to the executable. Chicken, for example produces a 15k executable. Running that executable requires the presence of a much larger dynamically linked libchicken. As mentioned in the article, an executable SBCL core includes all of SBCL. Considering that Java and .NET produce "executables" that are actually executed by their respective runtimes, I think it might be more fair to SBCL to compare the size of a FASL. It's 828 bytes for a FASL compiled from (print "Hello, world!") (sb-ext:quit)
statictype 18y ago
> Common Lisp - 25MB Double-You Tee Eff. What, does Common Lisp not have an incremental linker or something? Even Delphi executables are never that big. >Lisp has the largest executable file (because to create an executable, you have to dump a "core image") at 25MB Can someone explain what this means? I'm clueless.
- mqt 18y ago
  lispm, from reddit: There are different strategies to create CL applications. - save an executable image. This will mostly dump the Lisp system and when you start it up, you have mostly everything back. The size of the dumped image depends on the size of your Lisp system. SBCL is already large and does not have any special features to make it smaller. CLISP for example writes much smaller images than SBCL. Clozure CL is also smaller. Here also is important with how much debug information the original Lisp image was created. The saved image typically will include all that. Corman CL on Windows compresses the Lisp data to save space. - deliver an application. That's for example what LispWorks and Allegro CL can do. They allow functionality and information (debug info, documentation strings, arglists, source locations, symbols, caches, ...) to be removed (for example by treeshaking, or by removing whole functionality groups). The size of the generated application will depend on what you leave out and which delivery level you are choosing. Stuff that might not be needed: compiler, debugger, disassembler, editor, inspector, REPL, ... - deliver a static application. I don't know which currently maintained CL implementation does that. There were several Common Lisp implementations that generate 'small' and static C code from Lisp. CLICC, Ibuki's CONS, WCL, Lisp-to-C, ThinLisp were in that league. They were used for application delivery, where the application might be really small and does not have any large runtime or development environment. There are also some other options. Probably ABCL could generate a JAR file that could be started with an installed JVM. Often Lisp compilers can compile code to native code compiled files (fasls) and even can append several fasls into one. Then one does need only to ship the fasl file, given that the user has the a Lisp installed that can load the fasl. http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7swzs/hello_world_executable_sizes_in_17_languages/c07bd5z http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7swzs/hello_wor...
- 18y ago
jwr 18y ago
This is a very silly comparison. What is an executable? Do you consider dynamic libraries that it uses a part of it? Do you consider the language runtime a part of it? As an example, 12K for java is a ridiculous number. What's the size of the runtime required to run it? I bet it is larger than the 25MB for Common Lisp, but it doesn't get counted -- why? And if you're there, you need to define what your base runtime is -- is it the OS kernel? OS kernel + a set of base dynamic libraries? If so, which ones? Is glibc standard? glib? zlib?
smcdow 18y ago
It can be done in 8 bytes.
TrevorJ 18y ago
I'd like to see the code for "Hello World" for biological systems.

13 points by mqt 18y ago

jws 18y ago

It would be interesting to also see how much RAM was used to run Hello World, but then I'd want to also know how much was shared with other programs, shared between instances of this program, and not shared... it would probably get out of hand.

gertburger 18y ago

It seem like the author does not differentiate between compiled (To machine code) and (To intermediate/byte code). Does that mean the pyc(114 bytes on my machine) generated by python for 'print "Hello world"' can be compared to the others? It is still interesting though.

aniketh 18y ago
don't forget you would have to add a shebang line to make it truly executable
- smcdow 18y ago
  Not really: $ echo 'echo $0' > 'Hello, world!' $ chmod +x 'Hello, world!' $ 'Hello, world!' Hello, world! $ wc 'Hello, World!' 1 2 8 Hello, world! 8 bytes. I think that's probably as small as you can get.
  - smcdow 18y ago
    Oh, brother, formatting.<p> <pre> $ echo 'echo $0' > 'Hello, world!' $ chmod +x 'Hello, world!' $ 'Hello, world!' Hello, world! $ wc 'Hello, World!' 1 2 8 Hello, world! </pre>

huhtenberg 18y ago

The size of D executable - 230K - is a quite big surprise.

Zak 18y ago

In some of these cases, I suspect the main difference is related to how the language's runtime libraries are linked to the executable. Chicken, for example produces a 15k executable. Running that executable requires the presence of a much larger dynamically linked libchicken. As mentioned in the article, an executable SBCL core includes all of SBCL. Considering that Java and .NET produce "executables" that are actually executed by their respective runtimes, I think it might be more fair to SBCL to compare the size of a FASL. It's 828 bytes for a FASL compiled from (print "Hello, world!") (sb-ext:quit)

statictype 18y ago

> Common Lisp - 25MB Double-You Tee Eff. What, does Common Lisp not have an incremental linker or something? Even Delphi executables are never that big. >Lisp has the largest executable file (because to create an executable, you have to dump a "core image") at 25MB Can someone explain what this means? I'm clueless.

mqt 18y ago
lispm, from reddit: There are different strategies to create CL applications. - save an executable image. This will mostly dump the Lisp system and when you start it up, you have mostly everything back. The size of the dumped image depends on the size of your Lisp system. SBCL is already large and does not have any special features to make it smaller. CLISP for example writes much smaller images than SBCL. Clozure CL is also smaller. Here also is important with how much debug information the original Lisp image was created. The saved image typically will include all that. Corman CL on Windows compresses the Lisp data to save space. - deliver an application. That's for example what LispWorks and Allegro CL can do. They allow functionality and information (debug info, documentation strings, arglists, source locations, symbols, caches, ...) to be removed (for example by treeshaking, or by removing whole functionality groups). The size of the generated application will depend on what you leave out and which delivery level you are choosing. Stuff that might not be needed: compiler, debugger, disassembler, editor, inspector, REPL, ... - deliver a static application. I don't know which currently maintained CL implementation does that. There were several Common Lisp implementations that generate 'small' and static C code from Lisp. CLICC, Ibuki's CONS, WCL, Lisp-to-C, ThinLisp were in that league. They were used for application delivery, where the application might be really small and does not have any large runtime or development environment. There are also some other options. Probably ABCL could generate a JAR file that could be started with an installed JVM. Often Lisp compilers can compile code to native code compiled files (fasls) and even can append several fasls into one. Then one does need only to ship the fasl file, given that the user has the a Lisp installed that can load the fasl. http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7swzs/hello_world_executable_sizes_in_17_languages/c07bd5z http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7swzs/hello_wor...
18y ago

jwr 18y ago

This is a very silly comparison. What is an executable? Do you consider dynamic libraries that it uses a part of it? Do you consider the language runtime a part of it? As an example, 12K for java is a ridiculous number. What's the size of the runtime required to run it? I bet it is larger than the 25MB for Common Lisp, but it doesn't get counted -- why? And if you're there, you need to define what your base runtime is -- is it the OS kernel? OS kernel + a set of base dynamic libraries? If so, which ones? Is glibc standard? glib? zlib?

smcdow 18y ago

It can be done in 8 bytes.

TrevorJ 18y ago

I'd like to see the code for "Hello World" for biological systems.