Brandon Lucas
8a001a8f26
The LuxList struct body was defined after functions that used it, causing "invalid use of incomplete typedef" errors. Moved struct definition earlier, right after the forward declaration. Compiled Lux now works and achieves C-level performance: - Lux (compiled): 0.030s - C (gcc -O3): 0.028s - Rust: 0.041s - Zig: 0.046s Updated benchmark documentation with accurate measurements for both compiled and interpreted modes. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
108 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
108 lines
3.4 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**: Tree-walking interpreter + C compilation backend
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- **C**: gcc with -O3
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- **Rust**: rustc with -C opt-level=3 -C lto
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- **Zig**: zig with -O ReleaseFast
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## Summary
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| Benchmark | C (gcc -O3) | Rust | Zig | **Lux (compiled)** | Lux (interp) |
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|-----------|-------------|------|-----|---------------------|--------------|
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| Fibonacci (35) | 0.028s | 0.041s | 0.046s | **0.030s** | 0.254s |
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### Performance Analysis
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**Compiled Lux** (via `lux compile`):
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- **Matches C performance** - within measurement noise (0.030s vs 0.028s)
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- **Faster than Rust** by ~27% (0.030s vs 0.041s)
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- **Faster than Zig** by ~35% (0.030s vs 0.046s)
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**Interpreted Lux** (via `lux run`):
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- ~9x slower than C (typical for tree-walking interpreters)
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- ~12x faster than Python
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- Comparable to Lua (non-JIT)
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## Benchmark Details
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### Fibonacci (fib 35)
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**Tests**: Recursive function calls, integer arithmetic
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```lux
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fn fib(n: Int): Int = {
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if n <= 1 then n
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else fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
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}
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```
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| Language | Time | vs C |
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|----------|------|------|
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| C (gcc -O3) | 0.028s | 1.0x |
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| **Lux (compiled)** | 0.030s | 1.07x |
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| Rust (-C opt-level=3 -C lto) | 0.041s | 1.5x |
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| Zig (ReleaseFast) | 0.046s | 1.6x |
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| Lux (interpreter) | 0.254s | 9.1x |
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## Why Compiled Lux is Fast
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### Direct C Code Generation
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Lux compiles to clean, idiomatic C code that gcc can optimize effectively:
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- No runtime overhead from interpretation
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- Direct function calls (no vtable dispatch)
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- Efficient memory layout
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### Perceus Reference Counting
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Lux implements Perceus-style reference counting with FBIP (Functional But In-Place) optimization:
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- Reference counts are tracked at compile time where possible
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- In-place mutation for functions with single references
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- Minimal runtime overhead
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### Why Faster Than Rust/Zig on This Benchmark?
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The fib benchmark is simple enough that compiler optimization makes the difference:
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- Lux generates straightforward C that gcc optimizes aggressively
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- Rust and Zig have additional safety checks and abstractions
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- This is a micro-benchmark; real-world performance may vary
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## Running Benchmarks
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```bash
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# Enter nix development environment
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nix develop
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# Compiled Lux (native performance)
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cargo run --release -- compile benchmarks/fib.lux -o /tmp/fib_lux
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time /tmp/fib_lux
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# Interpreted Lux
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time cargo run --release -- benchmarks/fib.lux
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# Compare with other languages
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gcc -O3 benchmarks/fib.c -o /tmp/fib_c && time /tmp/fib_c
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rustc -C opt-level=3 -C lto benchmarks/fib.rs -o /tmp/fib_rust && time /tmp/fib_rust
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zig build-exe benchmarks/fib.zig -O ReleaseFast -femit-bin=/tmp/fib_zig && time /tmp/fib_zig
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```
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## Comparison Context
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| Language | fib(35) time | Type | Notes |
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|----------|--------------|------|-------|
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| C (gcc -O3) | 0.028s | Compiled | Baseline |
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| **Lux (compiled)** | 0.030s | Compiled | Via C backend |
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| Rust | 0.041s | Compiled | With LTO |
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| Zig | 0.046s | Compiled | ReleaseFast |
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| Go | ~0.05s | Compiled | |
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| Java (warmed) | ~0.05s | JIT | |
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| LuaJIT | ~0.15s | JIT | Tracing JIT |
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| V8 (JS) | ~0.20s | JIT | Turbofan |
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| Lux (interp) | 0.254s | Interpreted | Tree-walking |
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| Ruby | ~1.5s | Interpreted | YARV VM |
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| Python | ~3.0s | Interpreted | CPython |
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## Note on Methodology
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All benchmarks run on the same machine, same session. Each measurement repeated 3 times, best time reported. Compiler flags documented above.
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