PHP Micro Benchmarking

Coming from an original assembly language (computer machine language) background - where optimization is the norm, I foundChris Vincent’s new site at PHPBench about PHP micro-benchmarking intriguing- it’s well worth the read. You can find a short description here.

While I agree wholeheartedly in this explanatory comment at the end of the page:

All in all micro-benchmarking was not considered to me as something that Is utterly important for how a program works. I agree with those people who have said that the major items at the hardware and algorithms.

I also agree with Chris’s approach: if you can determine the faster way to do things, and train yourself to use the “better” constructs consistently [never at the expense of maintainability, however] you’ll get a step up in your code … not only in performance (which can be significant in large programs), but also in terms of consistency in your code.

I do have some questions about this benchmark, for example, exactly what version of PHP is being used, and what is the platform? Would a 64 bit processor have different charcteristics than a 32bit? Maybe. Maybe not.