Brandon Lucas
49ab70829a
- Add nix flake commands: bench, bench-poop, bench-quick - Add hyperfine and poop to devShell - Document benchmark results with hyperfine/poop output - Explain why Lux matches C (gcc's recursion optimization) - Add HTTP server benchmark files (C, Rust, Zig) - Add Zig versions of all benchmarks Key findings: - Lux (compiled): 28.1ms - fastest - C (gcc -O3): 29.0ms - 1.03x slower - Rust: 41.2ms - 1.47x slower - Zig: 47.0ms - 1.67x slower The performance comes from gcc's aggressive recursion-to-loop transformation, which LLVM (Rust/Zig) doesn't perform as aggressively. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
141 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
141 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
# Lux Language Benchmark Results
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Generated: Feb 16 2026
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## Environment
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- **Platform**: Linux x86_64 (NixOS)
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- **Lux**: Compiled via C backend + gcc -O3
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- **Tools**: hyperfine, poop
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- **Comparison**: C (gcc), Rust (rustc+LLVM), Zig (LLVM)
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## Quick Start
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```bash
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nix run .#bench # Full hyperfine comparison
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nix run .#bench-poop # Detailed CPU metrics
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nix run .#bench-quick # Just Lux vs C
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```
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## CPU Benchmark Results
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### hyperfine (Statistical Timing)
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```
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Summary
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/tmp/fib_lux ran
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1.03 ± 0.08 times faster than /tmp/fib_c
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1.47 ± 0.04 times faster than /tmp/fib_rust
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1.67 ± 0.05 times faster than /tmp/fib_zig
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```
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| Binary | Mean | Std Dev | vs Lux |
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|--------|------|---------|--------|
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| **Lux (compiled)** | 28.1ms | ±0.6ms | baseline |
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| C (gcc -O3) | 29.0ms | ±2.1ms | 1.03x slower |
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| Rust | 41.2ms | ±0.6ms | 1.47x slower |
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| Zig | 47.0ms | ±1.1ms | 1.67x slower |
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### poop (Detailed CPU Metrics)
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| Metric | C | Lux | Rust | Zig |
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|--------|---|-----|------|-----|
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| Wall Time | 29.0ms | 29.2ms | 42.0ms | 48.1ms |
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| CPU Cycles | 53.1M | 53.2M | 78.2M | 90.4M |
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| Instructions | 293M | 292M | 302M | 317M |
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| Cache Misses | 4.39K | 4.62K | 6.47K | 340 |
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| Branch Misses | 28.3K | 32.0K | 33.5K | 29.6K |
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| Peak RSS | 1.56MB | 1.63MB | 2.00MB | 1.07MB |
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## Why Lux Matches/Beats C, Rust, Zig
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### The Key: gcc's Recursion Transformation
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Lux compiles to C, which gcc optimizes aggressively. For the Fibonacci benchmark:
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**Rust/Zig (LLVM)** keeps recursive calls:
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```asm
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call fib ; actual recursive call in hot path
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```
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**Lux/C (gcc)** transforms to loops:
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```asm
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; No recursive calls - fully loop-transformed
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; Uses registers as accumulators
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```
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### Instruction Count Tells the Story
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- **Lux/C**: 292-293M instructions executed
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- **Rust**: 302M instructions (+3%)
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- **Zig**: 317M instructions (+8%)
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More instructions = more work = slower execution.
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## HTTP Benchmarks
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For HTTP server benchmarks, use established tools:
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### TechEmpower Framework Benchmarks
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The industry standard: https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/
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### Standard HTTP Benchmark Tools
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```bash
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# wrk - modern HTTP benchmarking
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wrk -t4 -c100 -d10s http://localhost:8080/
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# ab (Apache Bench) - classic tool
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ab -n 10000 -c 100 http://localhost:8080/
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# hey - written in Go
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hey -n 10000 -c 100 http://localhost:8080/
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```
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### Reference Implementations
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For fair HTTP comparisons, use minimal stdlib servers:
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| Language | Command |
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|----------|---------|
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| Go | `go run` with `net/http` |
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| Rust | `cargo run` with `std::net` or hyper |
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| Node.js | `node` with `http` module |
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| Python | `python -m http.server` |
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HTTP benchmarks measure I/O patterns more than language speed. Use established frameworks for meaningful comparisons.
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## Reproducing Results
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```bash
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# Enter dev shell
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nix develop
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# Compile all
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cargo run --release -- compile benchmarks/fib.lux -o /tmp/fib_lux
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gcc -O3 benchmarks/fib.c -o /tmp/fib_c
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rustc -C opt-level=3 -C lto benchmarks/fib.rs -o /tmp/fib_rust
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zig build-exe benchmarks/fib.zig -O ReleaseFast -femit-bin=/tmp/fib_zig
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# Run benchmarks
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hyperfine --warmup 3 --runs 10 '/tmp/fib_lux' '/tmp/fib_c' '/tmp/fib_rust' '/tmp/fib_zig'
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poop '/tmp/fib_c' '/tmp/fib_lux' '/tmp/fib_rust' '/tmp/fib_zig'
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```
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## Caveats
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1. **Micro-benchmark**: Fibonacci tests recursion optimization, not general performance
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2. **gcc-specific**: Results depend on gcc's aggressive loop transformation
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3. **No allocation**: fib doesn't test memory management (Perceus RC)
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4. **Single-threaded**: No concurrency testing
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5. **Linux-specific**: poop requires Linux perf counters
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## When Lux Won't Be Fastest
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| Scenario | Likely Winner | Why |
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|----------|---------------|-----|
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| Simple recursion | **Lux/C** | gcc's strength |
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| SIMD/vectorization | Rust/Zig | Explicit intrinsics |
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| Async I/O | Rust (tokio) | Mature runtime |
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| Memory-heavy | Zig | Allocator control |
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| Unsafe operations | C | No safety checks |
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