[Python-Dev] Where the speed is lost! (was: 1.6 speed)

[Jeremy Hylton]

The performance difference I see on my Sparc is smaller.  The machine
is a 200MHz Ultra Sparc 2 with 256MB of RAM, built both versions with
GCC 2.8.1.  It appears that 1.6a2 is about 3.3% slower.

The median pystone time taken from 10 measurements are:
1.5.2  4.87
1.6a2  5.035

For comparison, the numbers I see on my Linux box (dual PII 266) are:

1.5.2  3.18
1.6a2  3.53

That's about 10% faster under 1.5.2.

I'm not sure how important this change is.  Three percent isn't enough
for me to worry about, but it's a minority platform.  I suppose 10
percent is right on the cusp.  If the performance difference is the
cost of the many improvements of 1.6, I think it's worth the price.

Jeremy