25th March 2023, 3 min read

Performance Comparison C vs. Java vs. Javascript vs. PHP vs. Python vs. Cobol vs. Dart

Original post is here eklausmeier.goip.de/blog/2023/03-25-performance-comparison-c-vs-java-vs-javascript-vs-php-vs-python-vs-cobol-dart.

1. Introduction. This post is a continuation of a previous benchmark in Performance Comparison C vs. Java vs. Javascript vs. LuaJIT vs. PyPy vs. PHP vs. Python vs. Perl. Here we compare

1. C
2. Java
3. JavaScript
4. Python
5. Cobol
   • GnuCOBOL
   • gcobol (gcc based COBOL)
6. Dart

I tried to run IBM COBOL as well, but installation as described in Installing IBM COBOL for Linux on Arch Linux failed.

Testing machine is a Ryzen 7 5700G (Cezanne) with 16 CPUs and 4672.0698 MHz max clock. Operating system is Arch Linux 6.2.6-arch1-1. Source code for the programs is in Performance Comparison C vs. Java vs. Javascript vs. LuaJIT vs. PyPy vs. PHP vs. Python vs. Perl.

2. Results. I again use the n-queens problem, i.e., how many times can _n$ queens be put on an n x n chess board without attacking any other queen. Task at hand is to compute from n=1 to n=13 all possible combinations. For example, for C I call time xdamcnt2 13. I ran the programs multiple times and took the lowest result. Of course, all programs produced exactly the same results -- all computations are integer computations. Expected results are:

Runtimes in real and user seconds are given in below table. Times taken with time command.

3. Special modifications in COBOL program. Simon Sobisch, in private e-mail from 13-Mar-2023 to me, made below changes to the COBOL program:

1. No variable with sign any more, i.e., variable is always greater or equal zero
2. Compiler optimization flag -fno-trunc

Modifications by Simon Sobisch:

21c21
<        77 l             pic s9(8) comp-5.
---
>        77 l             pic 9(8) comp-5.
139,149c134,146
<                compute l = z - A(j)
<                if l = 0 then
<       *            exit section
<                    go to configOK-exit
<                end-if
<                if l < 0 then
<                    compute l = 0 - l
<                end-if
<                if l = k - j then
<       *            exit section
<                    go to configOK-exit
---
>                evaluate true
>                when z < A(j)
>                    move A(j) to l
>                    subtract z from l
>                when z = A(j)
>                    exit section
>                when other
>                    move z to l
>                    subtract A(j) from l
>                end-evaluate
>                add j to l
>                if l = k then
>                    exit section

4. Conclusions.

1. C is by far the fastest. Faster than Java by a factor of 1.5. Almost two times faster than Dart as its other closest competitor.
2. Java is roughly 20% faster than Javascript.
3. JavaScript and Dart have almost the same performance.
4. Cobol can be made faster than JavaScript and Dart but slightly slower than Java.
5. PHP 8 is two times faster than Python, but almost 25-times slower than Javascript.

5. Dart program. Dart is a programming language by Google and used for Flutter.

int abs(int x) { return  ((x >= 0) ? x : -x); }

/* Check if k-th queen is attacked by any other prior queen.
   Return nonzero if configuration is OK, zero otherwise.
*/
bool configOkay (int k, List<int> a) {
    int z = a[k];

    for (int j=1; j<k; ++j) {
        int l = z - a[j];
        if (l == 0  ||  abs(l) == k - j) return false;
    }
    return true;
}


int solve (int N, List<int> a) {  // return number of positions
    int cnt = 0;
    int k = a[1] = 1;
    int N2 = N;  //(N + 1) / 2;
    bool flag = false;

    for (;;) {
        if (configOkay(k,a)) {
            if (k < N)  { a[++k] = 1;  continue; }
            else ++cnt;
        }
        flag = false;
        do
            if (a[k] < N)  { a[k] += 1;  flag = true; break; }
        while (--k > 1);
        if (flag) continue;
        a[1] += 1;
        if (a[1] > N2) return cnt;
        a[k=2] = 1;
    }
}


void main (List<String> argv) {
    int NMAX = 100;
    List<int> a = [ for(var i=0;i<100;++i) 0 ];
    int argc = argv.length;

    print(" n-queens problem.\n"
    "   2   4    6     8      10         12           14\n"
    " 1 0 0 2 10 4 40 92 352 724 2680 14200 73712 365596\n"
    );

    int start = 1;
    int end = 0;
    if (argc >= 1)  end = int.parse(argv[0]);
    if (end <= 0  ||  end >= NMAX)  end = 10;
    if (argc >= 2) { start = end;  end = int.parse(argv[1]); }
    if (end <= 0  ||  end >= NMAX)   end = 10;

    for (int n=start; n<=end; ++n)
        print(" D(${n}) = ${solve(n,a)}");
}