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Now that Chez Scheme is open-source, I wonder how it compares to Racket and other Schemes or languages in terms of performance, so that one could make informed choices about using them in one's projects.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any relevant benchmarks.

I found the following:

https://ecraven.github.io/r7rs-benchmarks/benchmark.html

Problem: no Racket, or other languages (Update 10/13/18: Chez is now included in some of the benchmarks)

http://www.larcenists.org/benchmarksGenuineR6Linux.html

Problem: no Chez Scheme, or other languages

https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/

Problem: only Racket, questionable comparisions (For example, Python is not allowed to use Numpy where it would clearly help, while Racket is making FFI calls to GMP)

So, none of the benchmarks I found allow you to compare Racket to Chez, for example, or Chez to SBCL, or Java. Are there Chez benchmarks that give you a sense of how fast it is?

Chez Scheme is often said to be the fastest Scheme/Lisp around. We should know if it's faster than, say, Java for your typical business logic application.

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  • So what is it ou want to test R6RS, R7RS? Have you considered just downloading the top level test, compile it in the two and run them?
    – Sylwester
    Commented Aug 1, 2017 at 0:31
  • >>while Racket is making FFI calls to GMP<< Is Python allowed to make FFI calls to GMP?
    – igouy
    Commented Aug 1, 2017 at 16:28
  • @igouy Why are you asking me? Have you specified the rules of the benchmark, before renaming this thing into a "Game"? Why would you forbid using popular idiomatic libraries like Numpy and, at the same time, let people call any external C/Asm libraries?
    – MWB
    Commented Aug 1, 2017 at 21:17
  • @MaxB Just like Racket, Python is allowed to make FFI calls to GMP; and there's a Python program that does.
    – igouy
    Commented Aug 1, 2017 at 23:14
  • There is a bunch of Common Lisp benchmarks. Some of them should have been ported to Scheme. This project assembles common-lisp.net/project/cl-bench some of the benchmarks. The early Lisp benchmarks were the 'Gabriel Benchmarks', here included. Those are widely translated.
    – Rainer Joswig
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 17:34

2 Answers 2

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+50

Kent Dybvig has written articles on the implementation Chez Scheme. They'll often have comparisons with other implementations:

https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/

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It's anecdotal, but Matthew Flatt, the lead developer of Racket, thinks Chez is pretty good. You can read more about it here. He cites a regular expression matcher in which Chez is twice as fast as Racket and comparable to C.

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    I'd seen those. "Everyone" thinks Chez is pretty good, but is it in the same league as Java, or at least SBCL?
    – MWB
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 16:02
  • I don't think you'll find a controlled study, only anecdotes. But Matthew Flatt is hardly "everyone." If he thinks Chez is sufficiently better than Racket to abandon the native compiler in Racket in favor of Chez, I'm inclined to believe him. My experience is that Chez is as fast as anything else, and also rock-solid, in terms of not having bugs, which is at least as important as raw speed.
    – user448810
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 16:15

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