I don't think we are in a position yet to prove much of anything as regards real-world Perl programs, but just one data point as an example - using examples/assembly/life.pasm (changed to 5000 generations)
[Pentium 166MHz; linux 2.2.18] Clean CVS checkout (time averaged over 3 runs) -------------------------------------------------------------------- 5000 generations in 91.883605 seconds. 54.416672 generations/sec A total of 32768 bytes were allocated A total of 130932 DOD runs were made A total of 10930 collection runs were made Copying a total of 0 bytes There are 81 active Buffer structs There are 256 total Buffer structs Full string COW (time averaged over 3 runs) ------------------------------------------------------------- 5000 generations in 82.940713 seconds. 60.284025 generations/sec A total of 32768 bytes were allocated A total of 130932 DOD runs were made A total of 2412 collection runs were made Copying a total of 0 bytes There are 81 active Buffer structs There are 256 total Buffer structs -- Peter Gibbs EmKel Systems
