Elixir and Mac OS - anyone noticed a drop in performance?

lgp

Has anyone else noticed a sharp drop in Elixir performance on MacOS over the past couple of years? The problem really seems to be in startup time rather than actual execution time. I don’t remember the Elixir version or the MacOS version where it started, but I kept expecting the next update of one or the other to fix it, but it hasn’t. I’m now on MacOS Catalina and Elixir 1.9.2.

Here are some comparison startup times:

larry@habu ~ % time erl -noshell -eval 'erlang:display(erlang:system_info(system_version))' -eval 'init:stop()'"Erlang/OTP 22 [erts-10.5.2] [source] [64-bit] [smp:4:4] [ds:4:4:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe] [dtrace]\n"

erl -noshell -eval 'erlang:display(erlang:system_info(system_version))' -eval  0.20s user 0.07s system 8% cpu 3.045 total

larry@habu ~ % time perl --version                                                                        This is perl 5, version 18, subversion 4 (v5.18.4) built for darwin-thread-multi-2level

(with 2 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

Copyright 1987-2013, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the

GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on

this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl".  If you have access to the

Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Page.

perl --version  0.00s user 0.00s system 56% cpu 0.012 total

larry@habu ~ % time ruby --version                                                                        

ruby 2.6.3p62 (2019-04-16 revision 67580) [universal.x86_64-darwin19]

ruby --version  0.01s user 0.01s system 74% cpu 0.019 total

larry@habu ~ % time python --version                                                                        

Python 3.5.1

python --version  0.01s user 0.01s system 66% cpu 0.024 total

larry@habu ~ % time ghc --version                                                                        

The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 8.6.3

ghc --version  0.03s user 0.03s system 65% cpu 0.097 total

larry@habu ~ % time elixir --version                                                                           

Erlang/OTP 22 [erts-10.5.2] [source] [64-bit] [smp:4:4] [ds:4:4:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe] [dtrace]

Elixir 1.9.2 (compiled with Erlang/OTP 22)

elixir --version  0.18s user 0.10s system 4% cpu 6.180 total

larry@habu ~ % time erl -noshell -eval 'erlang:display(erlang:system_info(system_version))' -eval 'init:stop()'

"Erlang/OTP 22 [erts-10.5.2] [source] [64-bit] [smp:4:4] [ds:4:4:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe] [dtrace]\n"

erl -noshell -eval 'erlang:display(erlang:system_info(system_version))' -eval  0.19s user 0.06s system 9% cpu 2.723 total

Any thoughts?

23 comments

#performance #troubleshooting #mac

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2020-04-30 04:00:50 UTC

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christhekeele

Anecdotally, I haven’t noticed this over the years. There is a whole VM and OTP application tree being booted, so some of these comparisons aren’t the best. Booting Clojure on the Java VM might be a more equitable comparison, but I don’t have an install handy to test. If memory serves, it takes a little over half a second.

Post #1

dimitarvp

I actively use macOS for little more than a year now and got through 2 major macOS updates but no, I definitely haven’t noticed any startup performance degradation at all.

Post #2

axelson

Scenic Core Team

elixir --version taking 6 seconds does seem excessively long. Do you have anything in a .iex.exs file?

Post #3

lgp

Aha! I did have a .iex.exs file!

But after I removed it, the same thing happened.

FWIW, the behavior is the same on three different iMacs in the house. Although my home directory files are similar on all three, the startup time for Elixir is also the same for a “test” user who has essentially nothing in the way of configuration files:

larry@habu ~ % su - test
Password:

The default interactive shell is now zsh.
To update your account to use zsh, please run chsh -s /bin/zsh.
For more details, please visit Use zsh as the default shell on Mac - Apple Support.
habu:~ test$ ls -a
. .firefoxcatche Downloads Pictures
.. .ssh Library Public
.CFUserTextEncoding Desktop Movies dir.dir
.bash_history Documents Music
habu:~ test$ time elixir --version
Erlang/OTP 22 [erts-10.5.2] [source] [64-bit] [smp:4:4] [ds:4:4:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe] [dtrace]

Elixir 1.9.2 (compiled with Erlang/OTP 22)

real 0m4.670s
user 0m0.159s
sys 0m0.086s
habu:~ test$

Post #4

outlog

maybe a mac os catalina (10.15) issue? mine is fine on mac os 10.14..

how did you install erlang/elixir? and have you tried reinstalling/upgrading to latest erlang?

Post #5

lgp

It’s been happening through several MacOS upgrades, and through several Elixir upgrades/reinstalls as well. I don’t remember exactly when it started but it was more than a year ago and less than three years ago.

Post #6

outlog

definitely not normal - are the imacs harddisk based? maybe it’s IO limited (I’m on ssd as are most others I assume)

how do you install again? I would recommend asdf package manager..

also make sure you mac os dev tools are up to date - usually xcode-select --install

Post #7

lgp

Two of the iMacs have fusion drives, one is hard disk based. Don’t seem to have IO problems with any of the other langs.

My current installation is with “brew”. I had an older installation with “port” but had some issues with it and have been on the brew install since before the problem started. I’m in the process of doing a port install to see if that makes any difference. If that’s the same I’ll try an installation from source.

Post #8