CLOS efficiency: instantiation
Type
Event
International Lisp Conference
Date
Feb 1, 2009
Location
MIT
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Abstract
This article reports the results of an ongoing experimental research on the
behavior and performance of CLOS, the Common Lisp Object System. Our purpose
is to evaluate the behavior and performance of the 3 most important
characteristics of any dynamic object oriented system: class instantiation,
slot access and dynamic dispatch. This paper describes the results of our
experiments on instantiation. We evaluate the efficiency of the
instantiation process in both C++ and Lisp under a combination of
parameters such as slot types or classes hierarchy. We show that in a
non-optimized configuration where safety is given priority on speed, the
behavior of C++ and Lisp instantiation can be quite different, which is
also the case amongst different Lisp compilers. On the other hand, we
demonstrate that when compilation is tuned for speed, instantiation in Lisp
can become faster than in C++.