Hi Sam,

We used to have benchmarks (and maybe still do) in the main sympy repo, but
these were essentially never run. We were working on transferring them to
the sympy_benchmarks repo. The sympy_benchmarks repo was created and Bjorn,
Aaron, and I used to run that on every commit and publish the web output
using our own dedicated machines but I don't think that occurs anymore.
Oscar more recently connected it up to run on pairs of commits and output
those results to new PRs.

Benchmarks that can work with airspeed velocity should go in the
sympy_benchmarks repo. But your type 2 does fit nicely in the unit tests
and we have a handful of those in the main sympy repo. The key thing is
that they end up being run by CI and that people see them and hopefully
don't ignore regressions. If the tests fail due to unit tests then it can't
be ignored (having your type 2 in the main sympy repo). The airspeed
results in the PRs can more easily be ignored.

If it makes sense to add pytest-benchmark you can, but you'll have to get
the machinery running in CI. Note that I don't' think we actually use
pytest yet (still an old fork of it).

Jason
moorepants.info
+01 530-601-9791


On Wed, Sep 28, 2022 at 10:04 PM Sam Brockie <sbroc...@g-tudelft.nl> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I'd like to begin adding some additional benchmarks to SymPy to help
> inform the code generation work that I'm doing as part of the CZI grant.
>
> I'm aware of the benchmarks in the benchmarks repository
> <https://github.com/sympy/sympy_benchmarks>. My understanding is that
> these are run using airspeed velocity as part of the CI, and track how the
> performance of a particular benchmark has changed relative to the most
> recent SymPy release and the master branch.
>
> There are two other types of benchmark that I think might be useful:
>
> *1. Comparison of multiple ways to do equivalent computations*
>
> Below is a contrived example in which there are two functions, option_1
>  and option_2, that produce the same result but have different
> implementations.
>
> >>> from sympy import Matrix, symbols
> >>>
> >>> def option_1(a, b):
> ...     return Matrix([a+b, a*b]).jacobian(Matrix([a, b]))
> ...
> >>> def option_2(a, b):
> ...     Matrix([[(a+b).diff(a), (a+b).diff(b)],
> ...             [(a*b).diff(a), (a*b).diff(b)]])
> ...
> >>> a, b = symbols(“a, b”)
> >>> option_1(a, b) == option_2(a, b)
> True
>
> A benchmark in this case would time the execution of both option_1 and
> option_2 (for a range of inputs), compare the relative speeds, and report
> the differences. As this type of benchmark is not comparing the same
> benchmark across different SymPy versions, I believe that airspeed velocity
> may not be the best tool to use here.
>
> I see this type of benchmark as being useful for: (1) determining which
> algorithm to use when implementing a new function or refactoring an
> existing function; and (2) ensuring that an implementation remains superior
> to alternatives as changes are made elsewhere in SymPy.
>
> I have had success in the past implementing these sorts of benchmarks
> using pytest-benchmark
> <https://pytest-benchmark.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>. Is there currently
> anything similar anywhere is SymPy? Would the sympy/sympy_benchmarks
> repository be the best place to contribute PRs for these sorts of
> benchmarks? Does anyone have any differing opinions about how and where
> these should be implemented, or the value of this type of benchmark?
>
> *2. Measurement of non-time metrics*
>
> Below is another contrived example in which common subexpression
> elimination is used on an expression, y, and it is shown that the result
> of cse(y) involves fewer operations that the original expression.
>
> >>> from sympy import count_ops, cse, exp, sin, symbols
> >>>
> >>> a, b = symbols(“a, b”)
> >>> y = (sin(a/b) + (a/b) - exp(b)) * ((a/b) - exp(b))
> >>>
> >>> count_ops(y)
> 10
> >>> count_ops(cse(y))
> 6
>
> A benchmark in this case would count the number of operations in the
> return value from cse(y) and compare this to 6. Assuming that the
> implementation of the cse function has been changed, if the number of
> operations is six then we know that its performance hasn’t been changed by
> the refactor. If the count is greater than six a regression has taken
> place. If the count is less than six the performance of the function has
> been improved. Benchmarking for a range of inputs would obviously be
> required.
>
> I see this type of benchmark as being useful for: (1) measuring SymPy’s
> performance in instances where timing code snippets isn’t necessarily the
> best, or only valuable, indicator of performance; and (2) ensuring
> regressions haven’t occurred during refactoring.
>
> I believe this type of benchmark can be implemented using airspeed
> velocity’s track prefix. Or perhaps this type of benchmark would be best
> implemented as regression tests in the sympy/sympy repository’s test suite,
> comparing the non-time metrics to hard-coded values.
>
> As before, is there currently anything similar anywhere is SymPy? Should
> PRs for these sorts of benchmarks be contributed to the
> sympy/sympy_benchmarks repository using airspeed velocity's track or as
> regression tests in the sympy/sympy repository? Does anyone have any
> differing opinions about how and where these should be implemented, or the
> value of this type of benchmark?
>
> Sam
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "sympy" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/36e40796-3caa-4aa1-9753-1606773e9288n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/36e40796-3caa-4aa1-9753-1606773e9288n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> .
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"sympy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAP7f1AiXRgfWS8mfA-MM1BKjcC_Vtk%3DQm-nN25%3D9%3D8Uj4-%2Bsbw%40mail.gmail.com.

Reply via email to