>Delivered-To: d...@sidhe.org
>To: Dan Sugalski <d...@sidhe.org>
>cc: python-...@python.org
>Subject: Pie-thon benchmark code ready
>From: Guido van Rossum <gu...@python.org>
>Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:54:15 -0800

>While it's still 2003 in most of the US and Europe (and happy new year
>to the folks in Asia, Australia and New Zealand! :-), I present the
>official Pie-thon Parrot Benchmark:

>   ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/parrotbench/parrotbench.tgz

>I'll quote from the README.txt file:

>"""
>This is a benchmark to be run in front of a live audience at OSCON
>2004 between Python and Parrot.  The bytecode must be Python 2.3
>bytecode frozen in December 2003 (which is almost over as I write this
>:-).

>For some more background, see the python-dev thread around
>   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-December/040977.html

>The benchmark here is intended to make Dan Sugalski's life difficult:
>there are some standard benchmark thingies (simple random algorithms
>using basic data types) but also a lot of play with odd corners of the
>language definition, and Python's extremely dynamic object model:
>funky descriptors, mutable classes, that sort of thing.  The benchmark
>is supposed to run with either Python 2.3 or Python 2.4.

>[...]

>On timing: there's a requirement that the benchmark runs for at least
>30 seconds.  It currently runs for nearly a minute on my home box,
>which is a four-year-old 650 MHz Pentium box.  If the contest hardware
>is so fast that it runs under a minute, there's a number in b.py that
>can be cranked up to increase the number of runs.  (It takes 27
>seconds on my recent work desktop, and on my screaming IBM T40 laptop
>it runs in 15 seconds, so I suspect that we should at least double the
>number of runs from 2 to 4.)
>"""

>I'd be happy to answer any questions.  Let the competition begin!

>--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)