[Cuis-dev] usefulness of a faster #timesRepeat?

[Andres Valloud]

Hi,

>> First, especially in 32 bit systems, it's very important never to send 
>> timesRepeat: to a large integer --- this is why the large integer 
>> method splits the process in rounds of timesRepeat: sent to small 
>> integers. 
> 
> I guess you mean 'never run the iteration on LargeInteger arithmetic', 
> so with the splitting in LargePositiveInteger, sending timesRepeat: to a 
> large integer is ok...

Yeah, that's what I meant.  If you only had the simple implementation in 
Integer, then the to:do: will create large integers for every iteration. 
  That is a) slow in itself, and b) creates garbage that later has to be 
collected.

> Interesting. Not the case in Cuis, where there is no Compiler 
> optimization of #timesRepeat:

Right --- if that did happen though, then we'd be looking at writing 
timesRepeat: [aBlock value].

> Still, I wasn't explicit on what I really wanted to ask... My question 
> is: Is #bench (or bench: seconds) a good replacement for #timesRepeat:? 
> If so, does still make sense to have an optimized version of #timesRepeat:?

If there was bench: seconds, and if that accepted a float argument so 
one could say things like bench: 1.5 and things like that, then the 
timesRepeat: improvement would be less important for this use case.

The timesRepeat: improvements might still matter, but we'd have to find 
another justification for them first.

Andres.