Optimizing Bun compiled binary for gg2

tl;dr; adding --bytecode and --production to bun build --compile gives a marginal boost.

I have a CLI tool called gg2 which is written in TypeScript and using Bun compiled to a single executable binary that can be installed with Homebrew. It's fast. Only 17% slower than GitHub's Go-compile gh CLI. But can it get even faster?

I read about Bytecode Caching which is supposed to make the executable "dramatically improved". Hmm. Let's see. There's also the --production option, which according to Set NODE_ENV=production and enable minification. Not convinced it's doing much but let's try.

I compiled the binary 4 different ways:

• bun build src/index.ts --target=bun --compile --outfile out/gg
• bun build src/index.ts --target=bun --compile --outfile out/gg-bytecode --bytecode
• bun build src/index.ts --target=bun --compile --outfile out/gg-production --production
• bun build src/index.ts --target=bun --compile --outfile out/gg-bytecode-production --production --bytecode

Then I ran hyperfine like this:

hyperfine "./out/gg --version" "./out/gg-bytecode --version" "./out/gg-production --version" "./out/gg-bytecode-production --version" --warmup 6

The results are as follows:

(sorry for being terrible at using Excel to draw charts)

Conclusion

I'm skeptical. The hyperfine often complains about statistical outliers so you have to run it with warmup and re-run it till it doesn't complain.

One caveat with using --bytecode is that the compiled code is not re-usable across different versions of bun but I don't understand how that's applicable if it's a executable binary that is shipped outside of Bun.

I'm going to add --bytecode and --production to the next release of gg2.