Beating Go in counting words with Nim.

See the full original article for context and background: https://benhoyt.com/writings/count-words/

Original repository benhoyt/countwords is closed for further contributions.

Details and discussion

See the nim-lang forum thread: https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/7926

⚠️ There's a separate branch with a faster hashing hack applied. See details in the commit messages.

Status:

🍾Mission accomplished! Currently faster than Go by a factor dependent on input size:

x1: 19%
x10: 3.7%
x50: 1.7%

Code tries to stay close to the same basic algorithm used by most optimized versions from the original repo.

Probably no point running with --gc: other than arc or orc. Last comparison of various included garbage collectors:

arc/orc: 5.6s
boehm: 5.7s
markAndSweep: 5.9s
regions: 6.1s
refc: 6.4s

Timing the current implementation

To get statistically significant result measure multiple times or use specialized tools like hyperfine

Required:

• Bash
• Go
• Nim
• Writable /tmp/

./test.sh

To just build the Nim version:

nim c --gc:arc -d:danger --passC:"-flto" --passL:"-flto" -o:optimized_nim optimized.nim

Credits

The included Go version: Ben Hoyt and Miguel Angel

License

MIT