Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!ucbvax!ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU!edward
From: edward@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Wang)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: Efficiency of Y (Was: Limitation with lambda)
Message-ID: <26809@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 15 Nov 88 02:55:51 GMT
References: <8811142229.AA01756@duchamps.ads.com>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: edward@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Edward Wang)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <8811142229.AA01756@duchamps.ads.com> you write:
>   3.	Compute the factorial of a number using each of the three procedures,
>	timing the results.  Make the number large enough so that you can get
>	a reasonably accurate timing.  (I found 100 worked well for MacScheme,
>	and 1000 for T on my Sun 3.)
>
>I found performance of the three to be identical, leading me to believe that,
>given current Scheme compiler technology, there's no reason to avoid using Y.

Wouldn't the time be dominated by bignum arithmetic?
A better test would be to go through the iterations without
actually computing the factorial.