[GAP Forum] performance of GAP

[Laurent Bartholdi]

hi there,
prompted by a question on this forum [how does GAP perform compared to C 
code], i did the following experiment:

gap> L := List([1..10^7],SignInt);; time;
4890
gap> L := List([1..10^7],i->SignInt(i));; time;
7330
gap> L := [];; for i in [1..10^7] do Add(L,SignInt(i)); od; time;
5480

I would naively have expected all 3 timings to be the same. is there a 
general rule of "fastest coding style": avoid creating function objects, 
but use the primitive "List()" as often as possible?

be happy,
laurent
-- 
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Laurent Bartholdi           \  laurent.bartholdi<at>epfl<dot>ch
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