Sorry if I missed the correspondence between Perl6::Declare and Devel::Declare & Perl6::Signatures. If indeed there is any?
Perl6::Declare lets you declare subroutine/methods using Perl 6 signatures, which are lovely. I heard this turns out to actually be faster than Perl 5 calling conventions,
Devel::Declare talks about "declarator magic" and Perl6::Signature contains a Parse::RecDescent-based parser for signatures.".
If anything that uses P::RD turns out to be faster than my( $x, $y, $z ) = @_;, it will indeed be "magic". Oh! and I'll eat my hat! (I'll have to buy a hat to eat, but I'm sure I can find something tasty at a thrift shop:)
To clarify, what I meant by my request for less overhead, was a reduction in the internal (C-level) overhead associated with calling a perl subroutine, that results in this kind of comparison of similar subroutines coded in Perl and another bytecode compiled, interpreted language: Java.
Are Perl's function calls slow?
The archetypal test of function call performance is the Ackermann Function. Go here to see the list of other languages that out-perform Perl for function call performance. Many of those are fully pre-compiled languages. Many are not.
For comparison purposes, look at straight forward implementations in Perl, with the same in Java.
Perl:
P:\test\MJD>ack1 9
Ack(3,9): 4093
78.843 83.671 0 0
Java:
P:\test\MJD>timethis "c:javac ackermann.java && java ackermann 9"
TimeThis : Command Line : c:javac ackermann.java && java ackermann 9
TimeThis : Start Time : Fri Sep 02 22:01:28 2005
Ack(3,9): 4093
TimeThis : Command Line : c:javac ackermann.java && java ackermann 9
TimeThis : Start Time : Fri Sep 02 22:01:28 2005
TimeThis : End Time : Fri Sep 02 22:01:29 2005
TimeThis : Elapsed Time : 00:00:01.031
I've included the compilation and runtime for Java to even the score a little. JIT was not enabled.
So 83.6 seconds for Perl, and 1.031 seconds for Java!
Conclusion: Perl's function calls are slow.
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
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