Benchmark: Sorting speed comparison

Script Preparation code:

var sortDirections = {
  DEFAULT: -1,
  ASC: 1,
  DESC: -1,
};

var numberArrayToSort = [1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 5, 8, 7];

// ---------------------------------

var compare = (lessThan, equalTo) => {
  if (equalTo) {
    return 0;
  }

  if (lessThan) {
    return -1;
  }

  return 1;
};

var compareStraight = (a, b) => {
  if (a === b) {
    return 0;
  }

  if (a < b) {
    return -1;
  }

  return 1;
};


var compareStraightNumber = (a, b) => a - b;

// ---------------------------------

var primitiveTypeComparator = (a, b) => compare(a < b, a === b);

var genericDirectionComparator = (comparator = primitiveTypeComparator) => (a, b, direction = sortDirections.ASC) => {
  return direction * comparator(a, b);
};

var sortByNumberComparator = genericDirectionComparator();

// ---------------------------------

var sortDirectionWrapper = (compareFunc, direction = sortDirections.ASC) => (a, b) => compareFunc(a, b) * direction;
var cleanStraightSort = (direction) => sortDirectionWrapper(compareStraight, direction);
var cleanStraightSortFast = (direction) => sortDirectionWrapper(compareStraightNumber, direction);

// ---------------------------------

Tests:

PR Code
numberArrayToSort.sort((a, b) => sortByNumberComparator(a, b, sortDirections.ASC));
Comparison Code
numberArrayToSort.sort(sortDirectionWrapper(primitiveTypeComparator, sortDirections.ASC));
Comparison Code 2, simple sort function
numberArrayToSort.sort(sortDirectionWrapper(compareStraight, sortDirections.ASC));
Comparison Code 3, syntactic sugar
numberArrayToSort.sort(cleanStraightSort(sortDirections.ASC))
Comparison Code 4, now even quicker?
numberArrayToSort.sort(cleanStraightSortFast(sortDirections.ASC))

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
PR Code
Comparison Code
Comparison Code 2, simple sort function
Comparison Code 3, syntactic sugar
Comparison Code 4, now even quicker?

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 24 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

I'll break down the provided benchmark and explain what's being tested.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark compares different approaches to sorting an array of numbers in JavaScript. The sorting algorithm used is not explicitly specified, but it's assumed to be a stable sort like Merge Sort or Insertion Sort, which maintains the relative order of equal elements.

**Tested Options**

There are four test cases:

1. **PR Code**: Uses the `sortByNumberComparator` function, which is a curried version of the comparison function.
2. **Comparison Code**: Directly calls the `compare` function with the sorting direction set to ascending (`sortDirections.ASC`).
3. **Comparison Code 2 (simple sort)**: Similar to Comparison Code, but uses a simpler sorting function (`compareStraight`) instead of currying.
4. **Comparison Code 3 (syntactic sugar)**: Uses a syntactic sugar version of the comparison function (`cleanStraightSort`), which is similar to `sortByNumberComparator`.
5. **Comparison Code 4 (now even quicker?)**: A variant of Comparison Code 3, optimized for performance by removing unnecessary checks.

**Pros and Cons**

* **Currying (PR Code vs Comparison Code)**: Currying can improve code readability and make it easier to compose functions, but it may also incur a small performance overhead due to the additional function call.
* **Simplification (Comparison Code 2 vs Comparison Code)**: Using a simpler sorting function like `compareStraight` can reduce overhead, but may not be as efficient as the curried version or other approaches.
* **Syntactic sugar (Comparison Code 3 and 4)**: Syntactic sugar can make code easier to read and write, but may also add some overhead due to the compiler or interpreter.

**Library/Function Explanation**

The `compare` function is a simple comparison function that returns -1 if the first element is less than the second, 0 if they are equal, and 1 if the first element is greater. The `sortByNumberComparator` function is a curried version of this comparison function, which allows it to be composed with other functions.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

The benchmark uses some advanced JavaScript features, including:

* Currying (function composition)
* Syntactic sugar (using `cleanStraightSort` instead of the full `sortDirectionWrapper` function)

However, these features are not specific to JavaScript and can be found in other programming languages as well.

**Other Alternatives**

Other sorting algorithms that could be tested in this benchmark include:

* Quick Sort
* Heap Sort
* Radix Sort (for large datasets)
* Timsort (a hybrid of Merge Sort and Insertion Sort)

Additionally, the benchmark could also explore different sorting techniques, such as:

* Bubble Sort
* Selection Sort
* Insertion Sort

or even non-comparative sorting algorithms like:

* Counting Sort
* Bucket Sort

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2025 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_13_1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 63 on Mac OS X 10.13.1

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
PR Code	33918.4 Ops/sec
Comparison Code	90685.2 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

Sorting speed comparison (version: 10)

Test of sorting speed and approach to currying

Comparing performance of: PR Code vs Comparison Code vs Comparison Code 2, simple sort function vs Comparison Code 3, syntactic sugar vs Comparison Code 4, now even quicker?

Created: 6 years ago by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

PR Code

Comparison Code

Comparison Code 2, simple sort function

Comparison Code 3, syntactic sugar

Comparison Code 4, now even quicker?

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 24 days ago):