Ironpython experience

[Dino Viehland]

Lev wrote:
> I'm an on and off Python developer and use it as one of the tools.
> Never for writing "full-blown" applications, but rather small, "one-of-
> a-kind" utilities. This time I needed some sort of backup and
> reporting utility, which is to be used by the members of our team
> once or twice a day. Execution time is supposed be negligible. The
> project was an ideal candidate to be implemented in Python.  As
> expected the whole script was about 200 lines and was ready in a 2
> hours (the power of Python!).Then I downloaded Ironpython and
> relatively painlessly (except the absence of zlib) converted the
> Python code to Ironpython. Works fine and Ironython really is Python.
> But...
> 
> The CPython 2.6 script runs 0.1 seconds, while Ironpython 2.6 runs
> about 10 seconds. The difference comes from the start-up, when all
> these numerous dlls/assemblies are loaded and JITed.
> 
> Is there any way to speed up the process.

Can you give us more information about the environment you're running
in?  E.g. how did you install IronPython, is this on 32-bit or 64-bit
and are you using ipy.exe or ipy64.exe?

The sweet spot to be in is on a 32-bit machine or a 64-bit machine
and using ipy.exe.  You should also be using ngen'd (pre-compiled)
binaries which the MSI does for you.  Combining 32-bit plus ngen
should greatly reduce startup time and typically on our test machines
it only takes a couple of seconds (http://ironpython.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=IP26FinalVsCPy26Perf&referringTitle=IronPython%20Performance).

That's still a lot worse than CPython startup time but it's much
better than 10 seconds.  We also continue to work on startup time -
there's already some big improvements in our Main branch which should
be showing up in 2.6.1.  Matching CPython is still a long ways off
if we ever can do it but do intend to keep on pushing on it.