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| 1 | +# Performance Analysis: Typed vs Raw APIs |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +## Summary |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +After implementing typed API usage in redisctl for human-friendly commands (PR #25), we analyzed the performance impact. The conclusion: **performance differences are negligible in real-world usage**. |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +## Key Findings |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +1. **Network Latency Dominates**: Real-world API calls involve network round-trips that take 100-500ms+, while the difference between typed and raw parsing is <1ms. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +2. **Memory Impact Minimal**: Both approaches use similar memory (~6MB baseline), with typed APIs adding <2% overhead due to intermediate struct allocations. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +3. **Trade-offs Favor Typed APIs for Human Commands**: |
| 14 | + - **Type Safety**: Catches API changes at compile time |
| 15 | + - **Dogfooding**: Helps us discover issues in our own libraries |
| 16 | + - **Better Error Messages**: Typed errors are more specific than JSON parsing errors |
| 17 | + - **Negligible Performance Cost**: <1ms difference is irrelevant for CLI tools |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +## Architecture Decision |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +Based on our analysis, redisctl uses a hybrid approach: |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +### Raw APIs (`redisctl cloud/enterprise api`) |
| 24 | +- Direct passthrough of JSON responses |
| 25 | +- No intermediate parsing/serialization |
| 26 | +- Optimal for scripting and automation |
| 27 | +- Preserves exact API response structure |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +### Typed APIs (Human-friendly commands) |
| 30 | +- `redisctl cloud database list` → Uses `CloudDatabaseHandler` |
| 31 | +- `redisctl enterprise cluster info` → Uses `ClusterHandler` |
| 32 | +- Better type safety and error handling |
| 33 | +- Helps validate our library APIs through dogfooding |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +## Benchmarking Attempts |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +We created comprehensive benchmarks but found that: |
| 38 | +1. The performance difference is too small to measure reliably |
| 39 | +2. Mock server overhead dominated measurements |
| 40 | +3. Real network latency makes micro-optimizations irrelevant |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +## Conclusion |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +For a CLI tool making REST API calls, the performance difference between typed and raw APIs is insignificant. The benefits of type safety, better errors, and dogfooding our libraries far outweigh the microscopic performance cost. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +**Recommendation**: Continue migrating human-friendly commands to typed APIs while keeping raw APIs for the `api` passthrough commands. |
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