Re: Compiling byte code to native

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> Maybe the results would be a bit more encouraging if you tried to compile
>> lexbind byte-code (where local variables are kept on the byte-code stack
>> rather than being varbound&varref'd).

> This would be quite similar to compiling to a primitive, where the
> arguments will have to be lexically scoped.  It may show an
> improvement over the standard byte-code, but the lexbind byte-code may
> show a similar improvement.

I do expect lexbind byte-code to be slightly faster than dynbind byte-code,
but I also expect that the speed up you get from compilation to native code
will be even larger with lexbind byte-code than with dynbind byte-code.

This is because lexbind byte-code uses more stack-access operations which
are very simple and thus quick to execute and because such quick byte-code
operations have a relatively larger interpretive overhead (because the
overhead is constant per operations, so it's relatively higher for simple
operations).


        Stefan