Looking for speed increases in "make index" and pkg_version for ports

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith]

Hartmut Brandt wrote:

> Having done a great deal of rewriting of make some two years ago I can
> tell you that even a small change to make is a tough job testing-wise:
> run all the combinations of !-j and -j <N> on all architectures and run
> the change through the port-building cluster. That's a warning to start
> with.
> 
> Second I would start with careful profiling to find out where the
> problem actually is. You might be surprised. As an example: several
> times the idea came up to use a hash structure instead of linear lists
> for make variables. I got a patch for this and - it makes absolutely no
> difference performance-wise (well, there was some indication that
> performance gets worse, but that was around or below noise level). With
> careful I mean to find out who takes the time:

Yes, I must admit that I thought that a hash structure for the variables 
would greatly increase the speed of make.  I rewrote it using Berkeley 
databases, and like you said - absolutely no difference!!  I even tried 
btrees.