Idea: Compilation benchmarks for D publicity

[Nick Sabalausky]

This post: 
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?action=detail&id=110745&threadid=110549&roomid=2

...has made me realize that it would be very good for D if we had some good 
D-vs-C++ *compilation* benchmarks. Something template-heavy, and preferably 
real-world. Or maybe something specifically meta-programming-heavy that has 
four versions:

- C++ template metaprogramming without precompiled headers
- C++ template metaprogramming with precompiled headers
- D2 template metaprogramming
- D2 CTFE (while falling back on templates, of course, for anything that 
can't be done in CTFE).

And, of course, have results for:

- DMD
- LDC (or maybe not, it's still D1-only, isn't it?)
- GDC, if it's gotten good enough yet (don't know, haven't been following 
it)
- DMC (for apples-to-apples with DMD)
- GCC (to demonstrate a typical case, since GCC is so popular)
- GCC using the Gold linker (since it's the new poster boy for speedy C++ 
linking)
- LLVM's C++ compiler (I assume it has one, right?).

And, obviously, do a "clean" between each run...erm...I mean, between each 
compile.

Could be helpful for demonstrating things like just how much faster D 
compiles, and how with D it doesn't really matter if templates are slower 
than not using templates, and, of course, for sanity-checking all of our 
beliefs about D compilation speed.

Also would probably be good to read and heed the advice in here: 
http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html  ("Programmers Need To 
Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All" <-- I love the article's name :) )

I don't have time to attempt this. Plus I'd have no idea what project to 
look for on the C++ side, and I'm completely out of practice on C++. Any 
takers?

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