Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!convex!convex.convex.com!dale From: dale@convex.com (Dale Lancaster) Newsgroups: comp.benchmarks Subject: Re: Don't use bc (was: More issues of benchmarking) Message-ID: Date: 3 Dec 90 19:07:51 GMT References: <122@thinc.UUCP> <5042@taux01.nsc.com> Sender: usenet@convex.com Lines: 17 >Amos> Sure it doesn't; I wonder how no one else noted this yet: "bc" >Amos> is probably the worst choice of a utility to benchmark by. On >Amos> most UNIX systems, it just parses expressions, and forks "dc" to >Amos> execute them [...] >Of course the biggest problem is that almost no one actually *uses* >`bc' for any large amount of computation, so no vendor has any >incentive to optimize its performance. For this reason it makes a good a benchmark as any. I suspect that most Unix based bc's/dc's work the same. This is a typical dusty-deck, no optimization piece of code that shows the performance of the machine from not just the hardware side but the software (compiler) side as well. Today you have to benchmark the compiler as much as the hardware. But of course the only true measure of performance is my own application :-) dml Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com