Search for processes by start time

Conclusions

If you compare all the solutions with regard to functionality and our original objectives, all variants with the exception of Bash variant 3 provide useful results. In terms of program size, Bash variant 2 wins; the Go variant is the longest with more than 140 lines. The Python implementation falls in the lower middle range.

Opinions differ significantly on comprehensibility and readability. Especially with Listing 11 (the compact Perl variant), even die-hard Perl programmers need a moment (and the documentation for the module we used) to understand it. The implementations in Python or Go may be longer, but can be more quickly understood even by beginners.

In terms of run time, we found no significant differences in the solutions; all of them usually delivered a result within one to a maximum of one and a half seconds. This is fine for everyday use.

Both the Python script, as well as the Perl and Go implementations, make use of a matching library that offers easy access to the process information. The libraries for Python and Perl proved to be the most comprehensive. The Go library, however, still has room for extension. Functions that are already integrated in the Python library had to be built in the Go variant.

Thanks

We would like to thank Tobias Klauser for his go-sysconf package and support in optimizing the Go variant.

Infos

  1. Mésocentre de Calcul at the university de Franche-Comté in Besançon: http://meso.univ-fcomte.fr/
  2. MATLAB: https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html
  3. Linux process execution time: https://www.softprayog.in/tutorials/linux-process-execution-time
  4. psutil: https://psutil.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
  5. MetaCPAN: https://metacpan.org
  6. Proc::ProcessTable: https://metacpan.org/pod/Proc::ProcessTable
  7. Schwartzian transform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartzian_transform
  8. "10 Best Programming Languages to Learn in 2020": https://hackr.io/blog/best-programming-languages-to-learn-2020-jobs-future
  9. go-ps: https://github.com/mitchellh/go-ps
  10. go-sysconf: https://github.com/tklauser/go-sysconf
  11. Debian package management book: https://www.dpmb.org/index.en.html

The Author

Frank Hofmann mostly works on the road, preferably from Berlin, Geneva, and Cape Town, as a developer, trainer, and author. He is currently the Linux system administrator for the scientific computing cluster at the Mésocentre de Calcul at the Université de Franche-Comté in Besançon.

Axel Beckert works as a Linux system administrator and specialist for network security with the ETH Zurich's central IT services. He is also a volunteer with the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, the Linux User Group Switzerland (LUGS), the Hackerfunk radio show and podcast, and in various open source projects.

Hofmann and Beckert have also authored a Debian package management book [11].

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