I awoke today with renewed energy to deal with your nonsense, and I think after reading this comment it deserves a (hopefully) short reply.

>I use musl and I care a lot about performance. It doesn't matter because has no bearing on how fast my programs are.

This is the crux of the matter. You clearly have some investment in MUSL, that much has been apparent all along. If you actually USE it, which I'm sure you do, then you are not using the fastest possible library. Regardless of your skill, simply switching to a faster library will make a program faster. Sometimes, that's what is needed. We JUST want to find easy ways to make code as fast as possible. We aren't looking to rewrite the world.

I don't have any investment in MUSL. I wish the project well, but if it's not the fastest library then it will necessarily be unsuitable for some applications.

>What you keep forgetting is that's 25% of the part that you're actually using.

First off, I didn't forget shit. There are surely programs for which the penalty is actually 25% or close to it. The penalty can actually be far worse than that due to algorithmic complexity issues. Secondly, it is quite possible that one could use the standard library almost exclusively. Thirdly, any performance drop could be significant.

>You can say that, but really it's almost all C++ and people avoid C strings for exactly why I outlined in detail. You don't have length up front, it's all ascii, you're dealing with pointers to arbitrary runs of bytes, etc.

C strings are used extensively in C++. Again you prove how inexperienced you are.

>This is not good for memory access patterns, dealing with lots of characters at one time, dealing with unicode, minimizing memory allocations etc.

Keep deflecting with bullshit that is irrelevant to the choice of library, and that can't be changed but for massive refactoring.

>That is true that you are making lots of claims and that I'm not accepting them, because you don't have any evidence or explanations and they don't make sense.

There's only so much evidence and explanation I can provide to strangers on the internet. Then there is also the level of evidence that I can provide, such as other blog posts, that I don't feel like providing. A lot of the things I've said are true a priori (assuming some simplifications), such as the fact that a slower library will always be worse for performance than a faster library. If MUSL is measurably slower than others, then it can be a problem.

>Any program that is hammering the the C standard library can be sped up by orders of magnitude and 25% is nothing. Again, lifting memory allocations will speed something up by 10x, so that 25% isn't going to matter anymore because it's 25% of something that isn't even going to show up on a profiler, let alone be a bottleneck.

As I've said many times, rewriting software is not always on the table. Even minor changes may be forbidden or burdensome for various reasons. What you're talking about is a redesign, that may not be applicable to all cases anyway.

>>Your position seems to be that the title is wrong because it is theoretically possible to make MUSL-dependent programs fast according to some unstated performance metric

>

>I think you mean it's trivially possible according to the detailed explanation I gave from a lot of experience optimizing.

Right, your position is definitely that making these changes is "trivial"... I threw in "theoretically" because I interjected my own knowledge that these optimizations are often only theoretically possible, and can't be done for many practical reasons. My wrong statement of your position made it more defensible than it actually is.

>25% better might be fast enough for you, I like speeding up programs by 100x by changing to C++ instead of C and focusing on the optimizations that matter.

I don't want to get off on another tangent but you are trivializing and exaggerating a lot of stuff in this one statement. Changing languages and altering the code is not an easy win, and might actually trigger a performance setback. Switching to a faster library is a relatively easy win.

>Saying the same thing and getting more upset is not an effective way to make your point. You need real information, not insults and fake quotes.

I've made my point already, you just haven't accepted it. I assume you are either incapable of understanding (perhaps temporarily), or have unstated biases as I pointed out due to being a MUSL enthusiast or contributor. You're not convincing me either way. My position is that people who care about being as fast as possible should use the fastest available library, which clearly isn't MUSL. There may be other valid reasons to use MUSL, and it may be "fast enough", but other libraries are yet faster.

This is how I see your argument so far:

- MUSL is fast enough, trust me bro.

- Ok, maybe someone measured some functions to be slower, but everyone knows that you shouldn't be using the STANDARD LIBRARY heavily. Nobody has ever used strings or memory allocation that heavily, and if they did then they are doing it wrong (even if other libraries provide adequate performance for them).

- If you have a problem with this, you just need to do some trivial optimizations, or change languages to C++. It's SUPER EASY (at least for elite MFers like myself).

- Because rewriting the code to compensate for MUSL performance is always on the table, it's never reasonable to say that MUSL is causing a performance problem.

I only added a slight amount of emphasis. You've been pretty close to that bombastic in the whole exchange. It's ridiculous, and I think you are smart enough to know better but admitting that you are wrong is beyond the pale. Instead of wasting my time, how about applying those elite optimization skills you claim to have to the MUSL code to make it faster. Then you will be able to write a blog like "Don't use glibc if you care about performance" and argue with people on HN if you want. By the way, I didn't write this blog post, and I don't have any other conflicts of interest such as being a glibc developer, so don't start up with that shit either.

C strings are used extensively in C++. Again you prove how inexperienced you are.

You can try to be patronizing if you want, but this doesn't make sense with you not understanding memory access patterns. If someone uses C++ they will use C++ strings. Have you used C++? It works well and it has been around for 40 years, you should give it a try.

Keep deflecting with bullshit that is irrelevant to the choice of library, and that can't be changed but for massive refactoring.

You painting yourself into a corner has nothing to do with a C library being a few percentage points slower. This is not a general scenario, it's something you are dealing with because you can't optimize C strings.

If you think memory access patterns are 'bullshit' you haven't done much optimization. That's everything in modern optimization.

If there is an expert somewhere around you, please talk to them so you can get up to speed on modern optimization. Minimizing allocations is table stakes, memory access is the meat.

If you have any examples on github of things you think "can't" be optimized, go ahead and link it and tell me what a profiler shows, and I will explain what to do.

I've made my point already, you just haven't accepted it.

You made your claim, you haven't had any evidence or explanation, that's how it works. You say the same thing over and over and get more upset, but that isn't evidence. Show me where musl prevents someone from writing a fast program.

Insults and hallucinated quotes aren't a good foundation for proving your point. If you have to pretend that someone said something different, then maybe you aren't really making sense.

how about applying those elite optimization skills you claim to have to the MUSL code to make it faster.

Why would I do that when I don't use the C library for performance sensitive programs? You never seem to be able to confront this. The stuff made 50 years ago isn't the fastest possible stuff. It's still pretty fast and if you want something faster, do something else. It's not that complicated but it seems to really upset you.

I don't have any other conflicts of interest such as being a glibc developer, so don't start up with that shit either.

No one said anything about that, I think you're hallucinating or predicting something that never happened.