Optimizing Dancer2 PT. 5

So what do we have planned out for the future? We intend to introduce faster code for us, and more options for you to control the optimizations.

Introduce more immutability

An important rule in programming is "mutability is from the devil". At least it's what we say. The reason is that mutability (or "state") means constantly (or consistently) checking whether a value has changed, because, well, it can change.

Immutability (values that cannot change) do not require checking. They are, by definition, consistent. However, we do pay for recreating values and reinstating immutable values, so sometimes it's worth it to just check instead of recreate.

We intend to work harder on introducing more immutability where it affects our speed.

Built-in XS

We initiated several XS modules for Dancer2 to make use of, such as HTTP::XSHeaders and HTTP::XSCookies.

We wish to add more optional usage of such fast XS-powered modules, such as Ref::Util.

These will allow you to make things run faster by simply loading these modules.

Internal cleanups

There are several slower parts in Dancer2, such as the path resolutions, decoding of input, type constraint checks, and the dispatcher. These are all be improved and we will work on improving them.

Faster catch-most module

We also intend to introduce a new module to try and both load as many useful plugins and trigger as many improved settings to speed up as much as possible at once.

In conclusion

It is not hard to optimize and in many cases it is not worth it. However, using the correct modules, middlewares, stack, and code, we can create both faster and - often times - simpler applications.

Author

This article has been written by Sawyer X for the Perl Dancer Advent Calendar 2016.

Copyright

No copyright retained. Enjoy.

Sawyer X.