Re: [Boost-build] bjam memory consumption

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-15 21:09:55

Tomas Puverle <Tomas.Puverle_at_[hidden]> writes:

> I've used another python based build system - SCons - in the past and while 
> it's great from a ease of use point of view, the performance of the build 
> process is terrible.

That could be due to any number of things other than the fact that
it's written in Python.  Python's bytecode interpreter should be
faster for many basic programming jobs than the one in bjam.

> One of the really appealing things about bjam is how fast it is.  

We've seen reviews stating just the opposite.  You have to measure
carefully and understand what you're seeing to make any kind of useful
comparison.

Simple programming operations in bjam are hardly fast by most
standards.  The fact that everything is a list of strings makes some
things really difficult to do efficiently.

> OTOH, the 
> python interpreter startup/runtime can be very slow on several platforms I've 
> used it on (Sparc/Solaris 64-bit, Cygwin).

You must be on a *really* slow machine.  Python starts instantly for
me on Cygwin.

  time python -c "x = 1"

  real 0m0.134s
  user 0m0.046s
  sys  0m0.093s

That's a 1Ghz Pentium M.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com