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From: johnw@astroatc.UUCP (John F. Wardale)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Benchmarking
Message-ID: <272@astroatc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-May-87 19:01:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: astroatc.272
Posted: Tue May 12 19:01:08 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 15-May-87 03:10:00 EDT
References: <4294@nsc.nsc.com> <28200036@ccvaxa>
Reply-To: johnw@astroatc.UUCP (John F. Wardale)
Organization: Astronautics Technology Cntr, Madison, WI
Lines: 66

In article <28200036@ccvaxa> preece@ccvaxa.UUCP writes:
>
>  grenley@nsc.nsc.com:
>> How about, instead, compiles?  They are usually CPU intense (unless you
>----------
>I don't think compilers are sufficiently comparable to make good
>benchmarks, unless you wanted to specify the compiler, too (say,

Ok, so here I am, a new developer....   I need to buy a unix box.
(I'm developing code for some flavor of unix.)  So I select about
a dozen "likely" candidates; put my sources on each; then run the
following on each:
		time "touch types.h;make unix" 
or some other, similar or reasonable thing.  I compare the speeds,
and costs, and buy the one that's most effective for me.

While this is the best approach for selecting box to compile
kernels on, it has the following problems:

1)  Its en expensive (time consuming) exercise.
2)  Ones actual uses for a system are *LIKELY* to change in the
	future.

-----------------------------

Grenley is right!  A lot of people what/need a "system
performance" benchmark!   I wish that benchmarks like dhrystone
*INCLUDED* the time-to-compile-link-etc. in the time for dhry's
per second!   This would make (generally slow) super-optimizing
compilers look less good, while improving the lightening fast
(direct to memory -- ala turbo-pascal) compilers that may generate
slightly poorer than average code.
What difference does it make to me if super-O's `C' runs 15k dhry/sec
if it takes 2 or 3 times longer to compile than speedy's `C' which
only gets 8k dhry/sec.

Given numbers like this, I would REALLY want both, but then I like
to use interpreters (fast, threaded beasts, *NOT* like BASIC -- yuk!)
to develop code, and only "compile" it once.

-----------------------------

Picking a machine is ***ALOT*** more than finding one with the
highest number of XYZ benchmark that you can afford!

Anyone care to write an AI-ish program that collects prices, sw,
reliability, etc. etc. etc. (Ok, gobs of benchmarks too) and
several formula for calculating single-figure-of-merit, and help
in matching a formula to your expected needs.   I would expect
results like: The following 10-30 machines would be good for you,
I rate them as follows on a 1-5 scale (maybe a 1-10 scale)
(I assume that compressing to a single figure, would be question-
able for even one significant digit, but I also realize I'm lazy 
and need help picking the machine for me (or my company, etc.)


			John W

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Name:	John F. Wardale
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