The following is from an informal analysis, see benchmark_[category]_results.txt for benchmark data.
See benchmark_read_results.txt for data.
| Method (note) | ancestry | closure_tree |
|---|---|---|
| parent | ~same | ~same |
| root | 4x faster | 4x slower |
| depth* | 6x faster | 6x slower |
| ancestors | ~70% faster | ~70% slower |
| children | ~same | ~same |
| siblings | ~same | ~same |
| *This is without any depth caching for either gem |
I'm breaking out descendants to highlight some things. At great scale, ancestry performs faster, but at what might be considered reasonable counts, closure_tree is faster.
You can see the trend below. The fewer the descendants, the faster closure_tree is (often by 2 orders of magnitude). As you grow to a crazy amount of descendants, somewhere, ancestry becomes faster. Not sure what the magic number is, but it may not occur until you hit hundreds of thousands.
| Method (note) | ancestry | closure_tree |
|---|---|---|
| count: 300K+, depth: 0 | ||
| descendants.to_a (300K+) | ~same | ~same |
| descendants.pluck(:id) (300K+) | ~2X faster | ~2X slower |
| descendants.size (300K+) | ~3X faster | ~3X slower |
| descendants.count (300K+) | ~3X faster | ~3X slower |
| -------------------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------ |
| count: 317, depth: 5 | ||
| descendants.to_a (317) | ~50X slower | ~50X faster |
| descendants.pluck(:id) (317) | ~94X slower | ~94X faster |
| descendants.size (317) | ~87X slower | ~87X faster |
| descendants.count (317) | ~110X slower | ~110X faster |
| -------------------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------ |
| count: 123, depth: 6 | ||
| descendants.to_a (123) | ~74X slower | ~74X faster |
| descendants.pluck(:id) (123) | ~85X slower | ~85X faster |
| descendants.size (123) | ~103X slower | ~103X faster |
| descendants.count (123) | ~110X slower | ~110X faster |
| -------------------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------ |
| count: 11, depth: 2 | ||
| descendants.to_a (11) | ~135X slower | ~135X faster |
| descendants.pluck(:id) (11) | ~135X slower | ~135X faster |
| descendants.size (11) | ~160X slower | ~160X faster |
| descendants.count (11) | ~175X slower | ~175X faster |
| -------------------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------ |
| count: 1, depth: 1 | ||
| descendants.to_a (1) | ~175X slower | ~175X faster |
| descendants.pluck(:id) (1) | ~175X slower | ~175X faster |
| descendants.size (1) | ~180X slower | ~180X faster |
| descendants.count (1) | ~150X slower | ~150X faster |
| -------------------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------ |