Perl versus Lua

How the programs are written matters! Always look at the source code.

If the fastest programs are flagged * possible hand-written vector instructions or "unsafe" or naked ffi, does the host language matter? You might be more interested in the less optimised programs — more seconds, less gz source code.

fannkuch-redux
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua	667.45	666.97	3,363	469
Perl #3	1,275.15	1,274.31	7,512	433
Perl #2	432.70	1,723.38	16,654	577
Perl	1,836.45	1,835.47	7,524	463
n-body
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua #2	220.15	225.78—234.77	3,289	1200
Lua #4	225.31	229.08—235.54	3,285	1312
Lua	251.60	259.27—269.77	3,281	1207
Perl #2	452.42	451.65	8,741	1431
spectral-norm
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua	78.75	78.70—78.87	3,686	335
Perl	96.09	99.70—107.03	10,101	340
Perl #5	96.18	100.00—106.61	10,162	346
Perl #4	24.85	100.86—104.46	14,885	562
Perl #2	513.08	512.36	9,581	350
Perl #3	130.52	517.15	14,729	857
mandelbrot
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua	345.21	344.63	36,647	365
Lua #3	345.67	345.17	36,696	364
Lua #2	377.62	377.09	36,393	373
Lua #6	115.81	399.61	652,812	630
Perl	494.54	1,973.84	114,569	592
fasta
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua #2	24.12	24.07—25.28	3,695	1065
Lua #3	24.16	24.28—25.66	3,695	1065
Perl	59.63	60.57—63.69	58,769	875
Perl #4	117.88	118.80—121.19	8,438	969
Perl #2		Bad Output
k-nucleotide
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua #2	99.19	99.36—99.94	612,901	620
Perl #2	112.16	112.36—124.48	678,937	365
Perl	35.15	128.21—141.29	1,286,410	659
Perl #4	38.15	136.37—149.89	1,101,009	483
Perl #3	51.38	179.70—188.04	1,180,799	520
reverse-complement
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Perl #4	5.80	5.77—5.87	1,026,572	268
Perl #3	6.84	6.87—7.18	1,535,848	295
Lua #2	40.51	40.80—41.22	2,724,557	560
Lua #5	42.76	43.44—44.96	2,227,057	758
Lua #4	49.30	49.51—50.34	1,057,935	600
binary-trees [ Contentious. Different approaches. ]
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua #2	141.62	142.08—143.60	982,589	418
Perl #6	39.22	147.06—153.67	782,742	800
Lua #3	82.77	166.40—166.97	1,783,443	690
Lua #4	48.21	178.90—179.68	2,606,240	670
Perl #5	50.17	187.41—199.93	1,078,489	805
Perl	258.70	260.68—271.58	617,132	401
Perl #4	77.36	278.64—288.66	2,587,648	769
Perl #3	110.03	369.87	2,260,713	655
pidigits [ Contentious. Different libraries. ]
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Perl	13.47	13.51—13.66	16,441	471
Perl #2		Empty
Perl #4		Empty
* Lua #7		Empty
* Lua #5		Empty
* Lua		Empty
regex-redux [ Contentious. Different libraries. ]
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Perl	22.37	22.36—22.45	212,926	471
Perl #2	17.14	29.70—31.19	212,640	717
Perl #3	10.40	31.11—32.64	529,801	857
Perl #5		Bad Output
Lua		Empty
Perl #4		Bad Output
Perl	This is perl 5, version 40 subversion 0 (v5.40.0) x86_64-linux-thread-multi
Lua	Lua 5.4.6 Copyright (C) 1994-2023 Lua.org, PUC-Rio