Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nbires!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Dhrystone compilation times
Message-ID: <5213@ico.ISC.COM>
Date: 20 May 88 01:17:12 GMT
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO
Lines: 20


I decided to run the Dhrystone 2 benchmark on some machines we have around
here, just to satisfy my curiosity.  As I started shoveling the source code
around and setting things up, I noticed that it seemed to take a Long Time
to do some of the "make"s (all tests were on UNIX systems).  So I started
keeping track of the times.  I found an extreme case where, on the actual
benchmark, machine A was about 80% of the Dhrystones of machine B; however,
the time (user CPU) to do the "make" on machine B was 5 TIMES what it was
on machine A!  This is pretty extreme.

It would be interesting if people made notes of compilation times.  I'm not
suggesting adding this as some "formal measure" because I don't think it's
a particularly accurate measure.  However, it probably adds $.02 worth of
additional information.  In particular, if you're looking for a fast
machine where you're going to do a lot of development, it would be a bad
mistake to look at the Dhrystone number and think that machine B above
would be better than A, or even comparable.
-- 
Dick Dunn      UUCP: {ncar,cbosgd,nbires}!ico!rcd       (303)449-2870
   ...Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.