[Python-Dev] Disabling cyclic GC in timeit module

[Maciej Fijalkowski]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 11:47 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 4:50 PM, Maciej Fijalkowski <fijall at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> Can we disable by default disabling the cyclic gc in timeit module?
>> Often posts on pypy-dev or on pypy bugs contain usage of timeit module
>> which might change the performance significantly. A good example is
>> json benchmarks - you would rather not disable cyclic GC when running
>> a web app, so encoding/decoding json in benchmark with the cyclic GC
>> disabled does not make sense.
>>
>> What do you think?
>
> No, it's disabled by default for a reason (to avoid irrelevant noise
> in microbenchmarks), and other cases don't trump those original use
> cases.

People don't use it only for microbenchmarks though. Also, you can't
call noise a thing that adds something every now and then I think.

Er. How is disabling the GC for microbenchmarks any good by the way?

Cheers,
fijal