Statistical Programming with SAS/IML Software

Chapter 15

Timing Computations and the Performance of Algorithms

Contents

15.1   Overview of Timing Computations

15.2   Timing a Computation

15.3   Comparing the Performance of Algorithms

15.3.1   Two Algorithms That Deleted Missing Values

15.3.2   Performance as the Size of the Data Varies

15.3.3   Performance as Characteristics of the Data Vary

15.4   Replicating Timings: Measuring Mean Performance

15.5   Timing Algorithms in PROC IML

15.6   Tips for Timing Algorithms

15.7   References

15.1 Overview of Timing Computations

In a complex language such the SAS/IML language, there is often more than one way to accomplish a given task. Futhermore, in the statistical literature there are often competing algorithms for computing the same statistic. ...