[ic] Interchange and threaded Perl

Bill Eichin bill at eichin.org
Mon Jun 6 16:52:25 EDT 2005


In my server, I use /usr/local/bin/perl for Interchange; /usr/bin/perl 
is maintained by the package manager.


Henry Hartley wrote:

>On: Mon, June 06, 2005 12:48 PM, Mike Heins said:
>  
>
>>>Quoting Kaare Rasmussen (kar at kakidata.dk):
>>>      
>>>
>>>>>It's a shame not only because of Interchange, but because
>>>>>*every* Perl program runs 15-30% slower and because about .01%
>>>>>of code uses the features.
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Where do you have those numbers from?
>>>>
>>>>It's not that I doubt them. I just would like to see if they've
>>>>tested various applications to see where the penalty is biggest.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Just benchmarks of running ab against Interchange and test code
>>>against a threaded Perl. I had an email discussion with the Debian
>>>Perl port maintainer, and he confirmed the slowdown.
>>>
>>>The more subroutine calls you have, the worse it will be, so in
>>>all liklihood object-oriented packages with lots of method-based
>>>accessors will get hit hardest.
>>>      
>>>
>
>Can you give some idea of how big a hit we're talking about?  In my
>case, I've got a Fedora Core 3 web server and only use Interchange on
>one site.  That site is small and very (VERY) low volume and I'd be
>willing to put up with it not being particularly fast.  It would
>certainly make my life a lot easier if I had the option to use the
>threaded perl that I get with FC3.  Yes, I can (and did) replace the
>perl with a non-threaded perl.  Then I had to replace some of the
>modules with non-threaded versions.  Keeping track of that is a pain.
>Not the end of the world but certainly I'd be willing to put up with a
>little slowdown on this one site to avoid that.  Or would a threaded
>perl make it really, REALLY slow?  Alternatively, I could switch distros
>but that seems like even more work that what I've already done.
>
>Would it be possible, instead of requiring non-threaded perl, to change
>the installation of Interchange to warn (even warn strongly and require
>a switch) before installing in a threaded perl environment?  Or is that
>more trouble than what I go through to manage my Perl?
>
>  
>



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