40% slowdown with dynamic /bin/sh

[Geoff Speicher]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 03:15:57PM -0500, Andrew Gallatin wrote:
> 
> % /usr/bin/time ./harness.sh ./sh.dynamic 100
>         1.60 real         0.21 user         1.18 sys
> 
> % ./harness.sh ./sh.static 100
>         1.12 real         0.08 user         0.87 sys
> 
> So.. forking a dynamic sh is roughly 40% more expensive than
> forking a static copy of sh.  This is embarrassing.

All this noise because, for every 1,000 invocations of dynamic
/bin/sh, you have to wait nearly an extra 5 seconds.

Truly embarrassing, indeed.  Totally unacceptable for a BETA release.

We all could have collectively spawned millions of dynamic shells
in the time that it has taken to compile this thread.  But we didn't.
Can't be all that important, can it?  :)

Geoff