VW Smalltalk versus Ruby fastest performance 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 462.75 55,112 916 530.77 Ruby #2 169.71 29,140 1455 656.90 Ruby 1,466.53 24,936 384 1,466.47 n-body source secs mem gz cpu secs VW Smalltalk 113.02 55,444 1782 113.00 Ruby #3 190.96 25,644 1163 190.95 Ruby #2 218.13 25,684 1137 218.04 spectral-norm source secs mem gz cpu secs VW Smalltalk 49.48 55,336 642 49.48 VW Smalltalk #2 21.87 247,432 1047 62.48 Ruby #4 134.68 27,356 326 134.67 Ruby 136.75 26,644 292 136.69 Ruby #5 57.56 28,488 758 210.10 mandelbrot source secs mem gz cpu secs VW Smalltalk 324.58 55,124 603 324.55 VW Smalltalk #2 102.40 190,452 929 353.48 Ruby #5 155.55 93,112 970 619.59 Ruby #4 747.10 145,736 857 746.96 Ruby #2 255.19 95,912 880 1,015.91 Ruby #3 1,526.22 25,276 307 1,526.08 Ruby #6 Failed Ruby #7 Failed pidigits source secs mem gz cpu secs Ruby #5 1.64 894,828 488 1.64 Ruby #2 4.08 4,777,808 660 4.08 VW Smalltalk #4 8.06 55,768 753 8.06 Ruby 17.24 167,116 518 17.24 regex-redux source secs mem gz cpu secs Ruby #3 12.56 217,132 724 24.73 Ruby #2 24.86 242,680 437 24.84 Ruby #9 29.71 217,156 321 29.71 fasta source secs mem gz cpu secs Ruby #6 26.18 124,704 1069 26.18 VW Smalltalk 29.07 55,220 1539 29.07 Ruby #3 46.23 124,612 1002 46.23 Ruby #2 105.47 223,092 743 105.46 Ruby #5 112.99 27,152 995 112.98 Ruby #4 113.43 269,460 860 113.28 k-nucleotide source secs mem gz cpu secs Ruby #2 249.91 202,672 420 249.53 Ruby #3 285.77 209,580 540 285.36 Ruby #7 289.86 397,756 785 287.45 Ruby 83.82 174,084 576 291.63 VW Smalltalk #5 423.68 385,100 1317 423.42 VW Smalltalk 578.93 385,940 1110 578.89 reverse-complement source secs mem gz cpu secs Ruby #4 5.60 2,506,468 601 11.05 Ruby #5 11.77 1,615,676 295 11.77 Ruby #3 8.25 4,445,520 482 15.86 Ruby #2 23.00 1,003,740 264 23.00 Ruby 17.18 5,610,896 514 33.33 VW Smalltalk Bad Output binary-trees source secs mem gz cpu secs VW Smalltalk 38.58 375,420 711 38.57 VW Smalltalk #3 17.36 375,848 930 40.61 Ruby #4 46.86 569,364 364 46.85 Ruby #2 48.74 569,392 378 48.73 Ruby 48.74 569,348 376 48.74 Ruby #3 50.83 402,724 400 50.80 Ruby #5 18.36 565,588 1008 52.32 VW Smalltalk VisualWorks® 8.3 Aug 19 2017 Ruby ruby 3.2.0 (2022-12-25 revision a528908271) +YJIT [x86_64-linux] all VW Smalltalk programs & measurements all Ruby programs & measurements