Re: VC++2005 executables much slower than VC++6????

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"Nemanja Trifunovic" wrote:
[...]
However, I must add that I know at least one case when a developer was
complaining that his (STL-heavy) applications slowed down significantly
(3 times if I remember well) after porting it from VC6 to VC 2005. When
he used STLPort, the speed was back to normal.

Of course, this does not imply that STLPort is *always* faster than
Dinkumware, just that *in some cases* it may be :)


The problem with original poster's benchmark (as with any other artificial test) is that we don't know to what extent this test reflects real life workloads. I purposely won't bring the argument whether additional checks worth potential slowdown (although, in my opinion, they mostly worth it). I do believe that there may exist an application, which relies heavily on STL algorithms performance. For such sort of applications STL does have means to tune performance. However, before any attempt is made to use these means, developer should ask himself whether the application he writes does require any speed up eforts. Most of the times it doesn't.

The suggestion to switch to other STL than default one (with all the cost that results from that) just because of artificial benchmark speed test doesn't sound solid enough for me. There was good discussion about this very topic in microsoft.public.vc.stl recently. See "STL Slow - VS2005" thread started on 17th of August.

"STL Slow - VS2005"
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.vc.stl/browse_frm/thread/a37b93427276bc26/6d454bf5ebcf2829#6d454bf5ebcf2829


Alex

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