Joep Schuurkes (Posts about counterstring)

Benchmarking counterstring implementations in TypeScript

Joep Schuurkes — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 23:00:00 GMT

Earlier this year I posted about how I implemented a counterstring function using "fake it till you make it". I also posted about different ways to implement counterstrings. In this post, I want to share how those different implementations compare performance-wise.

To do this, I used both Tinybench and vitest bench (which uses Tinybench). The results are basically the same, but their default output is slightly different.

The nine implementations

Before I present the results, I should describe the different implementations and how they differ from each other. The actual code of each implementation is available on Codeberg. Here I'll only mention what makes each implementation interesting compared to the others:

Comparing counterstring implementations in TypeScript

Joep Schuurkes — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 23:00:00 GMT

In my previous post "Using 'fake it till you make it' to implement counterstring" I mentioned the implementation I included there, wasn't my initial implementation:

I did something less performant with reversing an array, because I had looked at PerlClips's source code. How that came about and what I learned from it, is for another blog post.

This is that blog post.

As a matter of fact, I currently have 9 different implementations of counterstring in TypeScript. Including two that are not mine: one is from PerClip but translated to TypeScript by me, the other is EvilTester's implementation. There are some interesting lessons to take, both from comparing the code of the different implementations, as from comparing the differences in performance. The performance-part of the comparison will have to wait for my next post, though.

Using "fake it till you make it" to implement counterstring

Joep Schuurkes — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 23:00:00 GMT

Last week I implemented PerlClip's counterstring in TypeScript. A counterstring is a string that tells you how long it is. For example a counterstring with length 9 looks like this: *3*5*7*9*. Each number tells you the position of the asterisk following the number. My main goal with this project is to learn more about front-end development.

Before I could start doing any front-end stuff, however, I needed to write a function that correctly generates counterstrings. Since I approached it in a way that I really enjoyed, inspired by Llewellyn Falco "Fake it till you make it", I figured it would make a good first post about this project.

The idea behind "fake it till you make it" is simple. Start with an implementation covering a single case ("fake it") and then pull it apart little-by-little until it becomes an actual program ("make it"). As Llewellyn explains in the video, the value of this technique is that it's a lot easier to start from a working example and proceed from there than it is to get complete requirements.

I did approach counterstring from the opposite direction, though, as Llewellyn did with Fizzbuzz in the video. Llewellyn starts with FizzBuzz length 20, so a case covering all the logic. Then he refactors it using different techniques, such as separation and encapsulation. While I started with counterstring length 0, the most simple case, and then worked my way up to larger lengths.