Pharo Smalltalk versus VW Smalltalk fastest performance

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

If the fastest programs are hand-written vector instructions, does the host language matter? You might be more interested in the less optimised programs — more seconds, less gz source code.

fannkuch-redux
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
VW Smalltalk	455.06	55,040	916	455.02
Pharo Smalltalk	480.30	77,824	871	483.49
n-body
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
VW Smalltalk	108.66	55,424	1787	108.65
Pharo Smalltalk	115.93	77,824	1801	116.71
spectral-norm
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
VW Smalltalk	49.30	55,296	649	49.29
Pharo Smalltalk	53.30	76,800	683	53.66
VW Smalltalk #2	22.15	246,912	1054	62.81
mandelbrot
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
VW Smalltalk	324.53	55,168	609	324.50
Pharo Smalltalk #2	341.70	76,672	574	343.96
VW Smalltalk #2	101.22	189,696	935	354.27
Pharo Smalltalk	363.47	77,312	573	365.89
fasta
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
VW Smalltalk	30.08	55,168	1542	30.07
Pharo Smalltalk #2	42.70	76,800	1381	42.98
Pharo Smalltalk	91.55	77,440	1375	92.16
k-nucleotide
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
VW Smalltalk #5	426.73	385,348	1323	426.68
Pharo Smalltalk #2	490.42	349,988	1105	493.69
Pharo Smalltalk	553.64	350,036	1196	557.33
VW Smalltalk	571.83	385,972	1116	571.77
Pharo Smalltalk #5		Failed
reverse-complement
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
Pharo Smalltalk #2	163.36	1,072,676	724	161.72
Pharo Smalltalk	563.98	1,073,184	907	567.36
VW Smalltalk		Bad Output
binary-trees
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
Pharo Smalltalk	35.00	329,088	673	35.23
VW Smalltalk	37.93	375,552	717	37.93
VW Smalltalk #3	16.93	375,808	932	38.02
pidigits
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
Pharo Smalltalk	7.13	94,712	706	7.21
VW Smalltalk #4	8.42	55,680	757	8.42
regex-redux
source	secs	mem	gz	cpu secs
Pharo Smalltalk		Failed
Pharo Smalltalk	Pharo 12.0.0 Pharo-12.0.0+SNAPSHOT.build.1507.sha. a4f8da8972214b9c9c39c33e826394a109911041 (64 Bit) Compiler: 5.4.0 20160609
VW Smalltalk	VisualWorks® 8.3 Aug 19 2017