Zsh Performance

I use zsh for a pretty long time now. It began with zsh + grml configuration, went over the famous powerlevel9k (where I helped implementing a few features like svn support) and currently ended with my own zsh configuration: Hikari-ZSH

I have to admit I have been quite happy with powerlevel9k. It had a rich feature set and I have been in love with all these shiny UTF-8 icons and powerline graphics. Just one thing bothered me: performance. It has been an absolutly no-go for me, that I had to wait for my zsh between inputs. I am not a speed fetishist, but I expect a good shell to give feedback at a pace of <400ms. This is called the Doherty Threshold and ensures a good user experience (UX). Everything above this threshold will let the user wait and waiting means frustration. So I developed the idea of a new zsh configuration that fits my needs. In the end I landed on a few snippets of the grml configuration flavored with own functions, an own prompt and a few unique keyboard shortcuts, like surround features for quotes. But how do we measure zsh performance? Well, it’s quite easy just put this line before all zsh configuration: zhmod zsh/zprof. Another way to measure startup time is: time zsh -i -c exit.