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	604.54	604.44	3,330	469	0.17
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	216.21	222.12—231.65	3,269	1200	0.10
Lua #4	216.59	224.22—232.39	3,273	1312	0.18
Lua	244.50	250.36—259.88	3,273	1207	0.19
Perl #2	452.42	451.65	8,741	1431
spectral-norm
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua	77.63	77.91—90.12	3,568	335	0.19
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 #3	487.31	487.90—488.97	3,711	364	0.18
Lua	500.61	500.82—501.71	3,707	365	0.16
Lua #2	523.44	524.95—527.02	3,232	373	0.15
Lua #6	159.01	557.36—558.01	652,796	630	0.10
Perl	494.54	1,973.84	114,569	592
fasta
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua #2	24.14	24.33—26.33	3,686	1065	0.20
Lua #3	24.15	24.17—25.73	3,682	1065	0.18
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	90.52	90.72—91.24	613,040	620	0.15
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	38.73	38.89—39.62	2,724,770	560	0.18
Lua #5	42.84	44.40—45.94	2,227,048	758	0.20
Lua #4	46.06	46.12—48.03	653,398	600	0.18
binary-trees [ Contentious. Different approaches. ]
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua #2	142.32	145.28—148.96	1,043,743	418	0.13
Perl #6	39.22	147.06—153.67	782,742	800
Lua #3	82.05	164.78—165.70	1,753,616	690	0.18
Lua #4	47.56	175.72—176.19	2,055,766	670	0.16
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
* Lua	2.99	3.02	24,666	482	0.13
Perl	13.47	13.51—13.66	16,441	471
Perl #2		Empty
Perl #4		Empty
* Lua #7		Empty
Lua #6		Empty
* Lua #5		Empty
regex-redux [ Contentious. Different libraries. ]
	elapsed	Mean or 95% CI
source	secs	cpu secs	mem	gz	make
Lua	2.59	2.59	360,264	488	0.17
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
Perl #4		Bad Output
Perl	This is perl 5, version 40 subversion 0 (v5.40.0) x86_64-linux-thread-multi
Lua	Lua 5.4.7 Copyright (C) 1994-2024 Lua.org, PUC-Rio