Script vs Tag Speed
(Posted on 07-Jul-08)Is CFScript Slower than CFSet
OK... last week there was a big chatter online about the speed of script vs the speed of tags. The user ran 10,000 loops in script then ran the same using CFSet in a loop.
The Short Realities
This is not going to be a long post but rather an answer to the mistakes many of us make when testing. When we test we should make sure our results are valid. :) I sought to validate this developer's tests and we are running CF8 on the machine where the tests are being run. The first three tests showed script 1/3 the speed, script was 3 times faster and then typically the results from both averaged less than 5% difference. Your results may vary but a big gun at Fig Leaf also checked things out and came to the conclusion this whole topic is a waste of time.
What's the point?
So why did I bring it up? Well, if you check out my book "ColdFusion 8 Tutorial" you will find we use script over and over and suggest that if you haven't tried it out you should try it out. There is nothing wrong with using tags. Yet, it seems there is a rolling attempt to demonize script from certain segments of the community. Let's be kind to those who are old school because there is nothing wrong with doing tag based coding. Yet, for those of us who prefer script... this post is just here to say. Laugh a bit... it's nice that we aren't the only crazy ones out in the internet world. Consider the chatter on the speed of script last week!