(sorry if you received an earlier mail from me that was half-formed, I hit 
send by accident)

Hi there, I'm quite new to Clojure, and was trying to do some very simple 
benchmarking with other languages.  I was surprised by the floating-point 
results I got, which differed (for the same calculation, using doubles) 
compared to the other languages I tried (including C++, SuperCollider, Lua, 
Python).

My benchmark iteratively runs a function 100M times: g(x) <-- sin(2.3x) + 
cos(3.7x), starting with x of 0.

In the other languages, I always got the result *0.0541718*..., but in 
Clojure I get *0.24788989*....  I realize this is a contrived case, but -- 
doing an identical sequence of 64-bit floating-point operations on the same 
machine should give the same answer.   Note that if you only run the 
function for about ~110 iterations, you get the same answer in Clojure (or 
very close), but then it diverges.

I assume my confusion is due to my ignorance of Clojure and/or Java's math 
library.  I don't think I'm using 32-bit floats or the "BigDecimal" type (I 
even explicitly converted to double, but got the same results, and if I 
evaluate the *type* it tells me *java.lang.Double*, which seems right). 
 Maybe Clojure's answer is "better", but I do find it strange that it's 
different.  Can someone explain this to me?

Here are some results:

*Clojure: ~23 seconds*
(defn g [x] (+ (Math/sin (* 2.3 x)) (Math/cos (* 3.7 x))))
(loop [i 100000000 x 0] (if (pos? i) (recur (dec i) (g x)) x))
;; final x: *0.24788989279493556 (???)*

*C++ (g++ -O2): ~4 seconds*
double g(double x) {
return std::sin(2.3*x) + std::cos(3.7*x);
}
int main() {
double x = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 100000000; ++i) {
x = g(x);
}
std::cout << "final x: " << x << std::endl;
return 0;
}
// final x: *0.0541718*

*Lua: ~39 seconds*
g = function(x)
return math.sin(2.3*x) + math.cos(3.7*x)
end

x = 0; for i = 1, 100000000 do x = g(x) end
-- Final x: *0.054171801051906*

*Python: ~72 seconds*
def g(x):
    return math.sin(2.3*x) + math.cos(3.7*x)

x = 0
for i in xrange(100000000):
    x = g(x)

# Final x: *0.05417180105190572*

*SClang: ~26 seconds*
g = { |x| sin(2.3*x) + cos(3.7*x) };
f = { |x| 100000000.do{ x = g.(x) }; x};
bench{ f.(0).postln };
// final x: *0.054171801051906* (same as C++, Lua, Python; different from 
Clojure)

Thanks,
Glen.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Clojure" group.
To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com
Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your 
first post.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Clojure" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

Reply via email to