Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 9, 2011 17:33 UTC (Wed) by abacus (guest, #49001)
Parent article: Chrome 10 released

Impressive that JavaScript performance has been improved further. Last time I checked Chrome 9 finished the SunSpider benchmark already three times faster than Firefox 3.6.15.

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 9, 2011 18:27 UTC (Wed) by kripkenstein (guest, #43281) [Link] (8 responses)

> Impressive that JavaScript performance has been improved further. Last time I checked Chrome 9 finished the SunSpider benchmark already three times faster than Firefox 3.6.15.

Actually the SunSpider benchmark is a bad example. Both FF4 and IE9, which will be released this month, are better at that benchmark than Chrome (both due to features Chrome doesn't have: Tracing JIT in FF4, DCE in IE9).

Chrome dominates in Google's own V8 benchmark, though. And it is impressive that Chrome has improved even further in that specific benchmark.

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 9, 2011 18:37 UTC (Wed) by pranith (subscriber, #53092) [Link] (7 responses)

I just compared the beta of Firefox 4.0 and Chrome 10 in Sunspider benchmark and chrome beats ff4.0 by a whisker. (chrome is 1.056 times faster)

This being 4.0b13pre(2011-03-08), I do not expect much to change when ff4.0 final is released.

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 10, 2011 16:23 UTC (Thu) by tuos (guest, #43318) [Link] (6 responses)

Nitpicking..

1.056 times faster == more than twice as fast
0.056 times faster == faster by a whisker

So, the second one, right?

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 10, 2011 18:25 UTC (Thu) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link] (5 responses)

I really think you're wrong. I'm not a native English speaker, but I've never heard "one time as fast", instead "two/three times as fast". That's a multiplication, not adding of percent (like in 100% percent faster). It holds in Romanian, it surely holds in my conversation with native English speakers.

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 10, 2011 21:32 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (4 responses)

tuos is correct. Translated into math, if X is the original speed, then:

"Y times/percent as fast (as X)" => Y * X
"Y times/percent faster (than X)" => X + (Y * X)

So the original phrase "1.056 times faster" would actually mean slightly over twice the speed (X + (1.056 * X) = 2.056 * X). The correct phrase is probably "1.056 times as fast" or "0.056 times faster" (or "5.6% faster").

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 14, 2011 21:37 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

So when people say "it's two times faster!" you claim that they mean it's 1+(2*1)=3X as fast?

That's clearly wrong. Here's lots of evidence: http://www.google.com/search?q=two+times+faster

You're trying to apply mathematical rigor to the English language.

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 22, 2011 15:44 UTC (Tue) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (2 responses)

>So the original phrase "1.056 times faster" would actually mean slightly over twice the speed

I'd bet both my kidneys that if you actually try talking like this in real life, you would be misunderstood 100 percent of the time. Because you're completely wrong, of course.

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 22, 2011 20:52 UTC (Tue) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree that many other people, perhaps most, would misunderstand. However, that is merely because they are used to authors using the phrases incorrectly. Some sources (e.g. <http://www.theslot.com/times.html>) go so far as to say "it's safe to assume that a writer is using the 'times more' phrasing erroneously". It is safest to simply word the statement another way, like "faster by a factor of 1.056", if that is what one actually means.

The plain and precise meaning of "X times faster" is "X times more speed", which reduces to "(original speed multiplied by X) more speed" => "(original speed multiplied by X) plus (original speed)" => "(X plus one) times the original speed" => "(X plus one) times as fast".

Consider that "50% faster" means "50% more than the original speed", not "50% of the original speed", and "50%" is identical to "0.5 times". Why should "105.6% faster" be interpreted any differently?

Obviously English is not a prescriptive language, and words can change their meaning over time; however, I would hate to see a useful phrase like "X times more" ruined in this way when we already have a perfectly good way to express the intended concept, "X times as much".

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 22, 2011 21:08 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

> I would hate to see a useful phrase like "X times more" ruined in this way

Um, hello? Look at the link in my reply above. It's long since ruined and, I'm sorry to say, your one-man effort on LWN isn't going to change anything.

Improved JavaScript performance

Posted Mar 10, 2011 5:53 UTC (Thu) by rilder (guest, #59804) [Link]

You are comparing a very old version of firefox to latest version of Chrome. The result, hence is invalid. If you really want to compare, compare with the betas of Firefox 4 with releases of Chrome. I am sure if Firefox development versioned their betas, their version number will also be like 10 or 15.