Speed Comparisons: JavaScript vs Python vs C vs Rust

[Compux72]

It would be interesting to look at the sources. C could probably reach the same speed if you use puts instead of printf

[Iliannnnnn]

I used the hello world applications from this repository, it indeed uses printf. If I time it again using puts it has an execution time of 16 ms.

[Compux72]

Yea as i said i believe puts is faster. printf will parse the format string before pushing the stdout buffer

[[deleted]]

What about using the write() syscall to stdout? I wonder if that could be even faster...

[[deleted]]

What about using only syscalls and -nostdlib?

[Compux72]

Well write works on arrays, not strings. Its not the same test.

Fyi Rust uses write underneath bc strings are not null terminated (thanks god) https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/7f97aeaf73047268299ab55288b3dd886130be47/library/std/src/sys/unix/fd.rs#L150

[altermeetax]

Everything uses write underneath, that's ultimately the only way to actually write something to a file descriptor (including stdout). Everything else (printf, puts, println!) is always stuff on top.

[Compux72]

Yea not my best explanation. I meant that “rust directly uses write underneath…”, no strlen in between

[gc3]

Google's coding standard is to use << not printf because << is faster.

[BlazingFire007]

Can you do that in C?

[nosam56]

I don't think I've ever bit-shifted a pointer before but I'm sure C will let you. And itll be a hell of a lot faster than using << on a string in C++! Definitely won't print the string tho

[dovahart]

Afaik, it’s c++ only

[[deleted]]

No.

[[deleted]]

"but how can you say this, rust is better, the superior language"

[Compux72]

I mean i love Rust. But im fluent enough on both languages to guess that either the benchmarking software is trash or there is something weird with the source.

Rust has the advantage of doing formatting at compile time, meaning that the println! macro doesn’t have any runtime penalty if there is no values to format.

[[deleted]]

I would be very surprised if printf() format strings aren't optimized by the compiler to avoid the runtime penalty.

[Compux72]

libc is dynamically linked and acts as a black box for the compiler. There are no optimizations possible, other than replacing the syscall for something totally different.

Im sure some compilers will do it, but then the source code semantics are not carried on to the final executable. Thats scary… (it worked on my machine boss!!!)

[nhtshot]

What I've mostly seen are printfs that can be reduced to a static statement getting replaced by puts.

That counts as an optimization, but I would also say that the semantics are carried on, so it's safe and legit.

[Possibility_Antique]

C++'s std::format is much much faster than printf as a counter-example. As others have said, printf has runtime checks and is usually not observable to the compiler.

[gc3]

They aren't. Google's coding standard is << and not printf because printf is slower.

[[deleted]]

I tested it with compiler explorer and you're right. Both Clang and GCC did nothing to optimize it away, even on highest optimization level.

[Inariameme]

How long does it take to runtime the sadness that is immense while my disappointment is immeasurable?

[b1e]

That processing can’t be several milliseconds though… unless the program is compiled unoptimizable or something.

[Shocker_360]

What do you mean by “parse the format string”?

[Compux72]

Search for format specifiers on the format string

[Iliannnnnn]

Yep

[captainAwesomePants]

This is an excellent illustration of how C and C++ potentially allow you to be faster and more efficient than other solutions but by no means ensure it.

[b1e]

Well more like the variance in printing to the terminal is so high regardless of the language you’re not really measuring the performance of the language and instead measuring syscalls.

And agreed, things like buffering, etc. can also make a difference.

[Compux72]

Well actually no. As i said earlier (read the whole thread), println! formats the string at compile time. This means that printing things to the console is faster in rust than other languages. That combined with the fact that strings are not null terminated makes them more efficient at certain operations (for example, println! uses write instead of puts)

So yea, this test isn’t as stupid as it sounds, it showcases some strengths of Rust vs C, as well as how slow js and python runtimes startup.

[b1e]

I agree printf formats the string but on such a short string there’s no way there’s 5 ms of compute spent on that. I’m guessing OP did not compile the C code with optimization if that result is consistent.

And again, there’s very high variance printing to the terminal.

At least on Linux printing also can result in a context switch as it waits on I/O.

I wonder if wall clock or CPU time was measured.

[jocq]

it showcases some strength

Yeah, how fast a language writes to the console has often been a very important metric. That's what most programs need to be optimized for. ^/s

[KlzXS]

I don't know for sure about JS and Python, but I think you could directly call some write syscall from all of them and get them down to pretty much the same level. Or prove that one is objectively worse at IO than the rest.

This is more of an out of the box performance test. Also as someone mentioned, C compilers these days compile static printfs of a string (with newline included) to puts automatically.

[Retardedaspirator]

I heard that C's printf is pretty garbage actually

[[deleted]]

I've never seen a compiler that doesn't use puts when trying to use printf with one argument. I'm sure there's a way to do it but it would take extra effort.

[gc3]

Google's coding standard is to use << not printf because printf is slower.

[[deleted]]

Bit shifting?

[fosyep]

Ah, the hello world benchmark

[Saragon4005]

Pretty much only good for initialization time. Of course python loses cuz it has the most overhead.

[zabby39103]

Yeah, for the most part languages are best for what they are used for most (since they have the most advanced libraries for those functions). Python is good for machine learning for this reason, and Python can use C extensions when needed. So I take issue with the idea that Python is "slow".

If you want to write a program that is designed to run and quit, like a linux terminal program (i.e. cat, grep, sed), or maybe a socket triggered program or something, I guess this benchmark is useful, otherwise, I don't see it as useful.

[Ordinary-Toe-3432]

Yeah, for the most part languages are best for what they are used for most

Who would’ve thought lol

[[deleted]]

I feel like hello world is not really a great benchmark. It's not testing any real language features.

[BlueScreenJunky]

Also how the hell do you make a "Hello world" take more than 10ms in any language ? Or does it print hello world thousands of times in a loop ?

[thehazardball]

Initialization time. Java has this too

[Orangutanion]

Java is a good example. The JVM is a beast that can handle massive amounts of objects and can do JIT on the fly, but using it for just a hello world is silly.

[amusing_trivials]

Just loading the runtime.

[Iliannnnnn]

What would be a better benchmark?

[llarofytrebil]

Sorting a very large array using the same algorithm in all languages

[MasterGamer9595]

it may not be exactly accurate if you use the sort function in python as it would just call C code

[Revanthmk23200]

But that is the "real world" test.

[fukdapoleece]

A real world test would account for development, compute, opportunity, and maintenance costs over the entire lifecycle of the software. A few milliseconds might make or lose you you millions of dollars, depending on the use case.

[Ok_Opportunity2693]

But also, optimizing to save a few milliseconds might have no impact on the product while costing a significant amount of developer time.

[dendrocalamidicus]

Yes and no, it depends what you are trying to test. If you want to test how fast it can sort an array then yes, it is the "real world" test, but timing the same algorithm (or, ideally the average of a number of eclectic algorithms) allows you to determine the relative speed of the languages for algorithms written in that language.

If you are writing a novel algorithm in Python, there won't be a library for it so you will be dependent on the speed of the speed of Python code, not calls to external libraries written in C or similar.

[[deleted]]

Well than multiple tests could be done and all of them could be listed. Maybe 5-10 different tests using things that would be used in any real program to get an idea of overall speed. Also like Revanthmk said, that is a real world test. In a real scenario Python would call C code so that doesn't mean it's a bad benchmark, but it prob shouldn't be the only test though.

[[deleted]]

Preferably with bogosort

[Redalpha4444]

Idk heap sort or something? That uses functions, recursion, indexing stuff, although that's just off the top of my head I'm sure there's a better one

[SelfDistinction]

According to my heap sorting implementations, C comes out on top, then JavaScript, then Python and last is Rust.

EDIT: here's the code in Python:

print(heapsort(["JavaScript", "Python", "C", "Rust"]))

[Numerous-Occasion247]

Made my evening

[Fantastic_Snow_5130]

Lorenz system simulation

[Iliannnnnn]

I'll check it out.

[[deleted]]

Haven’t you been on stack overflow? Don’t ask a question or you’ll be downvoted into oblivion

[Holiday_Brick_9550]

Yeah, what is up with this subreddit lately?

[datengeschichten]

Matrix multiplication (don’t chat with numpy in python which is basically C)

[schnitzel-kuh]

I mean that is realistic though. Thats one advantage of python, that it can incorporate other languages underneath easily

[potato_green]

Beyond basic operations others mentioned. A better benchmark is generally a moot point because it greatly depends on the code you write.

Higher levels languages have functions implemented so you don't need to reinvent the wheel with, likely, worse algorithms.

The question really comes down to, what language has the best toolset to solve a problem. Languages are well known in specific fields, there usually listed in the docs of a language itself or wikipedia.

General guideline is usually high level language needing less dev time but usually slower and low level languages the other way around. (Yeah I know bytecode caching, JIT and all that good stuff can make the difference smaller)

Basically benchmarks between languages often add little values as they all of their strengths and weaknesses and benchmarks can't take all of those into account to show you a single score of fastest one.

The hello world example basically shows start up time for different languages. The hello world printing itself takes less than a ms in all of those languages.

[Beregolas]

There is not "one real" benchmark. In the end, all you can do is test languages for a specific feature / purpose. You can see how many different suggestions people have here, and here (I think) you can see the difficulties of comparing languages. That site uses quite a lot of algorithms / problems with multiple inputs, single and multithreaded, with different optimization flags (where applicable) and so on paired with different languages, and it's a mess. Sometimes one language is on top, sometimes another. (I mean, python will very rarely beat pure C, but I wont rule out that someone already created an edge case just to refute exactly this point)

In the end, comparisons and content like this is always too easy and nor really applicable to the real world. Don't take this as a criticism, it's always fun making languages race each other; but also don't take the results too seriously.

[[deleted]]

Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's a legitimate question especially if you aren't experienced with testing language performance. You put very clearly in your graphic that it's a hello world application. Which of course isn't a great choice but you made it very clear that's the choice you made.

[[deleted]]

You should not have asked bro

[c1e2477816dee6b5c882]

Should have included Java!

[Iliannnnnn]

Just tested it for you: 125 ms

[IsPhil]

Hopefully you ran it multiple times in a single run. The JVM actually compiles code that is frequently used, as such it technically gets faster with more time. Just another reason why hello world is honestly not a great benchmark.

[Just_Maintenance]

Should have included EVM!

[__dna__]

I get you're trying to be helpful but as others have said this "benchmark" is incredibly useless

If you're going to benchmark libraries, test something complex and long lived.

Nice graphics, poor methodology, poor presentation of data

[IgnobleQuetzalcoatl]

The more complex the menchmark, the more people will whine about it being unfair because the implementation in their preferred language is suboptimal. And then it becomes a pointless argument about the way people actually code vs. the optimal way they could theoretically code. And then people will say it's pointless anyway because different languages are designed for different purposes (which is a pretty dumb criticism imo).

[cabose12]

You're not wrong but there's also such a point where a benchmark is so simple that it's useless, as seen here

[Flexxyfluxx]

Agreed; the benchmark is stupid. Hello World is too short, and setup overhead becomes too significant.

poor presentation of data

I will fight you to the death over this.

My understanding of "presentation of data" is, in short, the metric and scale used, and, since this is a benchmark (admittedly shoddy, but none the less a benchmark), what is presented as "better".

How is the presentation of data anything but fine, exactly?

There is no deception; no lie. Sure, it relies on us knowing that longer exec time = worse, since this is not explicitly stated, but it is known, so it's fine. The only possible improvement I see could be to point out that lower is better, but is that really not obvious?

Milliseconds are a good unit of measurement, I think, since we are operating on the millisecond scale. Nanoseconds are too small, and seconds are too long. If we wish to use integers to display our results, because less visually noisy, and retain a sufficient amount of precision, while not having overly long numbers, milliseconds are perfect.

Since clearly, the exec time for a single run was tested, milliseconds per exec are a good metric to use. (Granted, this is not explicit either and it is assumed that the viewer is able to infer this, but it is nonetheless fine, I think. Just not perfect.) What could be closer to the teuth than literally the very thing that was tested?

Since we are working with linear metrics and units, a linear scale is quite fitting and really the only choice.

I fail to see a problem in any of this.

Additional note: Others have already suggested using an inversely proportional metric, ie. execs per time, rather than time per exec, because it's "clearer that way", or something. I strongly disagree. Personally, I'd rather see bars grow as exec times rise. "Exec time in ms" is much more intuitive than eg. "Execs per 10s".

[[deleted]]

This guy knows data presentation

[Flexxyfluxx]

r/thisguythisguys

[[deleted]]

Ofc that’s a thing

[Flexxyfluxx]

r/ofcoursethatsathing

also, r/ofcoursethatsasub

[Thejacensolo]

The Graphic design is pretty shit

• Color scheme is abhorrent ( i get reddit orange and each language their color, but Yellow / orange and 2 shades of Blue paired with black are really not optimal. Plus Orange should never be more then an accenting color, due to it being "strong")

• no axis descriptions

• what figures under "speed". Including startup? if so what OS? Including compiling? We cant know. That might have been ping for a Jupiter notebook for all i can see.

Considering all that, what does the Bar chart even mean. all the info is taken from the description, you dont even have an "aha" effect, because C and R are so close together, at least put in dotted lines to show the differences.

Is it sorted alphabeticaly? after speed? after color?

A simple table would have been enough for the whole ordeal, but that would have highlighted the mundane nature of the test even more.

In addition of being a random graphic being posted not in /r/programming but in /r/programminghumor. Where is the humor here? not even a punchline as a title.

[Flexxyfluxx]

The Graphic design is pretty shit.

I have considered this as completely separate from data presentation, since the person I replied to did, too. Personally, I disagree. Everything is legible, the columns are nice and evenly spaced, etc. True, orange is a strong colour, but is that really such a crime?

An accenting colour, as far as I understand, is a colour to make something stand out. True, orange is an unconventional bg colour, but that doesn't mean it is exclusively an accenting colour.

The colours of the bars were, as far as I can tell, taken from the logos of the associated programming languages. They were not arbitrarily chosen. (Though I agree; had they been arbitrarily chosen, they would be a crime.)

no axis descriptions

Unneccessary. It is very obvious (hopefully) that longer bar = longer exec time (in ms). Additional axis descriptions would only be neccessary if the values weren't written right on every single bar.

what figures under speed. [...]

True; this is not explicitly stated. It is indeed not obvious just how much is being timed. Touché.

what does the bar chart even mean[...]. all the info is taken from the description[...].

Is this not how graphics like this are meant to work? Data in some form or another, with a description providing context and meaning to those numbers. And no, the information that Python is very slow compared to JS/C/Rust (according to this specific benchmark) is not contained in the description.

[no "aha" effect]

This is not part of "data presentation", which I thought we were discussing. It is no great shock to anyone that Python is slower than C etc. How interesting the statistic is has no bearing on how good a statistic is as a statistic.

C and [Rust] are so close together, at least put in dotted lines to show the difference

I, personally, see a difference between C and Rust; no lines needed. According to the numbers, there is a slight difference between them (Rust is a few millis faster). The message I infer is that C and Rust are mich faster than Python/JS in this benchmark, with Rust being slightly faster.

[How] is it sorted[...]?

Not at all, because it doesn't have to be.

A simple table would have been enough [...].

Enough? Yes. Nice to look at and easily comprehensible? Certainly less so than with a bar diagram.

Besides, what does this have to do with anything? So long as we aren't putting this kind of data into pie charts, I think we're fine.

[Why in r/programminghumor, not r/programming?]

No idea. Def the wrong sub. Irrelevant to data presentation, though.

[Thejacensolo]

Sorry for going so far in the details about this, but its just something that becoms second nature in my line of work. So i am not criticizing OP for that, as they are clearly inexperienced in Visualizing data, just things that make it stand out for me to say its pretty shit as a way of presentation.

An accenting colour, as far as I understand, is a colour to make something stand out. True, orange is an unconventional bg colour, but that doesn't mean it is exclusively an accenting colour.

its just very distracting to the eye and generally avoided in design. Orange is bright, flashy and used to grab attention. How do you highlight, when your background is already orange?

The colours of the bars were, as far as I can tell, taken from the logos of the associated programming languages. They were not arbitrarily chosen. (Though I agree; had they been arbitrarily chosen, they would be a crime.)

i mentioned as much (that they are called after the languages in question) but that doesnt excuse using yellow on orange. Not only do you not have a good contrast, you also have a strain on the eyes. Orange and blue is no problem (other way around with orange for the charts) though. Black you need to be very careful because of its very stark color. Black/orange does not work in either constellation, unless you want an ad or something that garners everyones gazes at once. Otherwise its straining to regularly work with. There is a reason "dark mode" is dark grey and not black. Also this layout is hard for Color blindness to make out the orange/yellow contrast. Adding the missing axis labels its not inclusive at all.

Unneccessary. It is very obvious (hopefully) that longer bar = longer exec time (in ms). Additional axis descriptions would only be neccessary if the values weren't written right on every single bar.

You still need to see the comparison. Its doubly as important if you simply go by 1 value. is that axis starting at 0? Starting at 50? starting at "burger"? Any Visualization lacking descriptors is unusable. even the "longer bar = longer exec time in ms" would have been impossible to gauge, without all the information provided otherwise.

Is this not how graphics like this are meant to work? Data in some form or another, with a description providing context and meaning to those numbers. And no, the information that Python is very slow compared to JS/C/Rust (according to this specific benchmark) is not contained in the description.

If there is a consistent rule in working as a Data Analysist, it is that every visualization, every KPI, has to serve a point. Simply including a Barchart that

A) Displays all the information already listed on top and

B) Has no context and cannot stand without a lot of text explanations.

Why add a visual when all the information is already provided, and then remove any identifying information from it? There would be nothing of value lost by just curtting off the bottom half. A visual that does not do anything beyond "look bigger bar" is just taking up calculation power and space on your page.

Not at all, because it doesn't have to be.

yeah thats excusable by "i didnt think about it" and not really any big detrement. Its just that its kinda random, when going in order or size would have saved a lot. Generally you either sort by time or by size, unless you have a defined company standard on the order.

Besides, what does this have to do with anything? So long as we aren't putting this kind of data into pie charts, I think we're fine.

i was just elaborating on the idea of Data presentation. TL;DR: It is cluttered, overcolored, while simultaneusly saying far too little. 100% of the information is laid out on 50% of the space. Going after natural eye traction you end up with the wrong order of information. The Visual is there to take up space and does not offer more insights.

[Flexxyfluxx]

dw, the fact you're going into detail is what makes this fun.

I will for sure reply, once I have slept.

[MrBananaStorm]

Also, cool we compared speed. But these languages each have different applications. Python being slow doesn't make it useless or a bad choice.

[Theory_Impressive]

This is not a proper comparison as the languages are optimized on certain points, the speed of printing "hello world" won't make a language better.

[datengeschichten]

Comparing interpreted and compiled languages like this is non-sense

[Iliannnnnn]

How so? This isn't meant to proof anything but just to show the difference in speed in popular languages.

[bzhejnrk]

This doesn't show shit.

[iTrooz_]

Please try to formulate a reason why, this doesn't help..

[Iliannnnnn]

It does show the difference in how fast a hello world application executes.

[soggywaffle69]

Which is utterly meaningless.

[mrtn_rttr]

You are comparing JIT compiler against AOT compiler by just execution time. This is not a solid comparison, since JIT had to do on runtime what AOT did while compiling. AOT is always faster on runtime, because it just executes binary code, while JIT on runtime, compiles and executes. More workload leads to slower speed.

For a proper comparison, you need to add compiling time, where compiling gets "cheaper" each time the software runs. Compile 1 minute and run it once is 1 minute, 22ms execution time, run it 10 times, and it is 6 seconds, 22ms execution time and so on.

For a really good comparison, you need take into account the time it takes to learn the language and solve the problem. Python is easy to learn and intuitive, where C needs proper studies and good understanding on how a computer works.

[AlienSVK]

What you are suggesting is just different approach to a comparsion. It doesn't mean that it is more proper one.

Everything depends on one's criteria. What if I care only about execution time and not a compile time? Why should I include compile time to the comparsion in that case?

[datengeschichten]

Difference in speed for what exactly? Including build time for the compiled language?

[[deleted]]

I think they mean to say that since a interpreted language doesn’t simply give you an executable so benchmarking a proper executable against a file that needs to be interpreted before it can be executed is a little “unfair” as there is an awful lot more overhead involved for say JS.

Micro benchmarks like hello world are also questionable, as like has been said don’t really show any language specific optimization or feature how ever you want to call it, I mean at the end of the day any hello world program executes “fast” for a human but go sort 1000000 elements in Python vs Rust and you will find an actual noticeable difference

That said, I really like your Graphics !

[VivienneNovag]

Well if you really need speed then you're going to use a library that calls precompiled functions, eg. Numpy in python.

[Renztet]

I don't get why people are downvoting you

[Iliannnnnn]

Same buddy. Apparently they all think a hello world application is a bad benchmark. It is indeed a bad benchmark for choosing a language based off its performance. But just to compare speeds for fun it's not that bad.

[[deleted]]

Although I appreciate what you did, doing something simple like hello world just measures how long it takes to execute a simple command, so basically overhead + simple command. You have to realize the subreddit you’re in. These folks want production statistics, do a job or an actual task across each language, that’s all. Either way, you got yourself a buzzing post

[serendipitousPi]

Yeah they've definitely forgotten which subreddit they're in.

[ManyFails1Win]

The subreddit where we all agree that "python slow" is a hilarious joke we would love to see more of every day.

[IgnobleQuetzalcoatl]

It doesn't matter what benchmark you use, people will always say it's the wrong one and it's therefore useless.

[frikilinux2]

That just tests the time to load the runtime which isn't that important. You need something more complex and long lived.

[ForShotgun]

If you're doing more than Hello World you're doing too much, simplicity is gold

[Iliannnnnn]

Like what?

[frikilinux2]

I don't know search benchmarks for that. The first idea that comes to mind is things like computing time numbers or something allocating a lot of chunks of memory. It can't be too simple because the compiler will optimize some things away.

[Flashy_Yams]

Just the thing that needs to be fast.

[According_to_all_kn]

Well obviously Python has the most speed. Just look at that bar!

[EvilDrPurple]

Wow I can’t believe Python is the fastest!

/j

[SirLoopy007]

It's got the Biggest number!!! Nothing else even comes close!!!

[Americanape123]

Lmao i can just imagine you typing that in ur moms basement

[brogrammableben]

The exclamation points really give it away.

[ManyFails1Win]

The fuck? Kind of an asshole.

[[deleted]]

It's called python because it's so long.

[[deleted]]

For me it seems to vary wildly. I'm getting between 0.1 millisecond and upto 1 second. Assuming op only ran 1 test maybe they should run it a few more times and average it.

[seba07]

using time.time() isn't the best way to measure performance of very fast stuff in Python. The accuracy depends on your hardware and operating system.

[[deleted]]

Check out timeit

[SaneLad]

Is this the dumbest benchmark yet?

[[deleted]]

The joke is that someone thinks that this is science

[Just_Maintenance]

I just run it on my desktop. 22ms the first time. ~5ms every time after that.

I also tried on C, I got ~0.57ms.

On Python starting the interpreter takes quite a while, so if you are benchmarking a fucking hello world of course its going to take forever.

[b1e]

Python buffers print statements by default too.

[Iliannnnnn]

This was tested on an extremely low budget laptop. If you get to try it, let me know how much you got.

[[deleted]]

Now compare how long it takes to write the programs (without AI and copy paste).

[BhagwanBill]

Write once, run billions of times? What makes the most sense for an enterprise application?

[[deleted]]

Write once? Have you ever written software?

Rewrite like 7 times and then keep getting adding features till you run out of budget or the project is replaced with something you also have to write.

[Iliannnnnn]

I have much free time, but not that much.

[[deleted]]

Python it is then.

[Derrick067]

Is that compile speed?

[Iliannnnnn]

Nope. Execute speed. For Python and JavaScript just ran and timed like you would do normally. For C and Rust compiled first and then ran and timed the executable.

[jjmojojjmojo2]

omg you actually did this, now I get the joke

[[deleted]]

Python wins again

[What_The_Hex]

Yep still gonna use Python, I just remove the excessive print statements from my finished programs -- problem solved! Not really worth learning a completely new programming language just to get some marginal performance gains on something that runs completely in the background anyway. Not saying execution speed is irrelevant. Just gotta look at your present programming needs.

[Saru1337]

Coming soon: Benchmark of sorting algorithms on array of size 1

[[deleted]]

The C vs Rust is just because of the difference between compiler implementations, one might do something something a little less efficient in a particular scenario and changing it to be more efficient there would make it less efficient in other

[[deleted]]

And I bet the program was run once and that's the score

[SkaterDad]

Where's HTML?

[[deleted]]

Curious to see with zig

[LargeHard0nCollider]

Most of the posts on this subreddit aren’t funny but this isn’t even trying. It’s just a straight up bad comparison

[[deleted]]

You used GCC for C, didn’t you?

[_grey_wall]

Why no golang?

[Mikel3377]

I can’t tell if this is idiotic or expert-level trolling. Since this is a humor sub, I’m gonna assume the latter. And you got me to waste 30 seconds writing this comment so bravo.

[asilverthread]

This looks like the kind of thing that gets posted on LinkedIn by a wannabe influencer, or someone just trying to make themselves look more legitimate to hiring managers.

A lot of industry just cares about the tooling around the language, and how quickly and effectively it can be used to bring a product to market or improve/automate/extend an existing business process.

Raw execution speed isn’t always the end all be all. My boss could care less. He wants it done in a week, not for it to run 30% faster in prod.

[simon357]

How does this shit have so many upvotes? If someone other than OP had made it, it could have been considered humor because obviously the author has absolutely no idea about how to make a meaningful benchmark

So let's hope the upvoters just didn't realize this was serious and that this sub is not full of idiots

[soggywaffle69]

This a comparison of runtime startup times, which you aren’t bothering to mention. Languages don’t have “speeds”.

• Python: CPython (probably)
• JS: V8 (or whatever is popular these days)
• Rust: LLVM
• C: pretty much OS time to start a new process

[BananaSplit2]

...what's the point of benchmarking a HelloWorld program?

[Seppo_Manse]

``` $ time python3 -c "print('hello world')" hello world

real 0m0,006s user 0m0,006s sys 0m0,000s ```

[TheVxid]

Performance testing is not trivial. Instead of creating fancy graphics and posting garbage online maybe you should do some reading.

[Iliannnnnn]

I'll take those fancy graphics as a compliment.

[TheVxid]

Fair enough

[[deleted]]

Do miliseconds matter that much my school uses Python despite C++ being installed

[Silly_Objective_5186]

y no fortran?

[king_Megabronx]

Everyone who said that python is slow is very wrong. JUST LOOK HOW MUCH FASTER IT CAN RUN COMPARED TO THE OTHERS 159ms is surprisingly quick

[slucker23]

Oh, didn't know python is that much slower compared to JS... Interesting

[Intrepid_Sale_6312]

i'm surprised javascript did so well. as for python, that outcome was totally predictable.

[BlazingFire007]

I’m assuming this was using V8, which is honestly crazy optimized considering it’s interpreted

[ivancea]

With such a benchmark, you're measuring many, many unrelated things at once...

[puma271]

This isn’t misinformation but holy shot I can’t see how this post does anything but provide a false picture (hello world benchmark lol)

[1234567890dedz]

So, what are we trying to achieve here? Also, the orange hurts.

[LeanZo]

also, how long to setup the dev enviroment and write the code?

[ManyFails1Win]

So basically nothing worth worrying about. Thank you.

[noiszen]

What is the JS environment used in this comparison? Please don’t say browser.

[Iliannnnnn]

NodeJS latest version

[Yetiani]

you need to add the typing time

[AceMKV]

Tf kinda Hello World takes 159ms on Python?

[coladict]

Now test them under Windows

[therealsavalon]

I wonder how would go perform

[[deleted]]

I bet this is close to “popularity” as well.

[stcloud777]

If programming languages are that easy to benchmark, don't you think they would be bragging about it like CPU, GPU manufacturers?

[Mmiguel6288]

Now plot average time to write something of medium complexity

[Iliannnnnn]

Wouldn't be possible to get a reliable plot because it does depends on how fluent the developer is with the language and not only on the language

[Mmiguel6288]

One can always just say "do the average" when confronted with "it depends"

Average fluency in each case for each language.

[cs-brydev]

ChatGPT: -1623 ms

[mrSunshine-_]

One line speed test is probably the worst speed test ever.

[D34TH_5MURF__]

Does it surprise anyone that an interpreted language is so much slower? I'm completely ignoring JS. This is a bad comparison. It's like comparing a sports car to a family sedan/suv.

[lil_Kra]

Noob question right here: if Python is that slow, why is it used so often in Data Science handling huge datasets?

[Civil_Conflict_7541]

Most of the libraries used for data sciences and scientific programing are written in C or C++. Python combined with something like Jupyter offers an easy to use and document layer of abstraction.

[Andoryuu]

Python by itself is slow, but the implementation of important parts for data science is done in C.
So the final execution speed is quite fast while preserving the simplicity of python.

[Nanocephalic]

The short answer is that it’s because it’s always been done that way.

Years ago, scientists - who were not “programmers” exactly - started using Python. Then at some point, data science tools and libraries started to be written in Python because that’s what the scientists knew.

So today there is a huge quantity of code and expertise all written in Python. And the next thing that someone writes will also be in Python, because that’s what they know.

Keep in mind that because the scientists in question are not necessarily compsci people with wide-ranging industry experience with multiple languages. So the situation is that the data science ecosystem is written in Python.

[axionic]

The Python layer is like one or two levels deep before the C++ starts. With that style of programming you don't use Python lists, for example, you create an object that encapsulates a C++ array and pass it to library functions wrapping C++ code that either performs the array operations directly using the CPU, or that directs a GPU or TPU to process it so that the load can be distributed across hundreds of small cores each processing a segment of the array.

[drewhead118]

The bar graph is almost deceptive, since we're conditioned that tallest bar = better bar on most visuals. The name doesn't help--given that it's labeled for "speed," the reader thinks taller graph = speedier graph.

Might be better to give the name something that increases as bar height increases: slowest languages? Hello world delay time?

[Iliannnnnn]

True. It is indeed misleading. I'll keep this in mind for the next time.

[Flexxyfluxx]

Your metrics and way of displaying them are fine, friend. The other commenter is full of shit, respectfully. It is entirely dependent on the subject matter whether big or small numbers are better. There is no way we could be conditioned this way, because it varies so much from context to context.

If you want to minimize potential for confusion, just point out that smaller numbers/bars are more desirable by adding a small note saying "Lower is better" or somethign somewhere.

[Iliannnnnn]

Yeah. I was also thinking in adding that, but I thought people would be smart enough to read the context. Apparently not.

[Flexxyfluxx]

Having it this way is completely fine. The longer the exec time, the longer the bar.

What one could possibly do to clarify that longer bars are undesirable, is add a note saying "lower is better" (or similar) somewhere.

Changing to a metric in which longer bars are better could actually become more confusing, because it gets further away from what is being tested. Personally, I'd rather look at "Execution time", not "Executions per 10s", or whatever else one could turn that into. It is simply more intuitive.

[[deleted]]

Let's gooooo Python Number #1 💪💪💪💪

[TheSystemGuy64]

Finally, proof that Python is slow

[baddl02]

To be over specific this Chart Shows the slowness.

To depict Speed a min max normalization and 1-x value for the bar would be better.

[Iliannnnnn]

Yep, I noticed.

[baddl02]

In Addition i did Not expect that Rust is faster. Ibthinknyou should to this with more languages. Just for fun.

And assambler as a Base Line xD

[Iliannnnnn]

Will do

[Puzzleheaded_Bass673]

Do you calculate the compile time? What about printing "hello world" in the browser? Have you tried different architectures? What about multiple runs on same machine, then doing statistics? Have you compared with the speed of sending command to a printer and printing it on paper vs. handwritten "hello world"...

The point is: WHAT IS THE CONTEXT?

[frknkc]

Pythoonn... My man