the need for a bench suite

[Denys Duchier]

I have to say that my modest contributions in trying to speed up bzr have me
worried.  I am concerned that by improving one case, I may be introducing
regressions elsewhere.

It would be really helpful to have a bench suite to help verify that
improvements really are, and that they don't introduce regressions.

Probably such a bench suite could be built around unittest, but I don't feel
competent to set it up.  If someone could set up just the bare framework
(something similar to bzrlib/tests, e.g. bzrlib/bench) and a command to run it
(bzr bench), then I would be happy to contribute test cases.

Cheers,

--Denys