How to Use criterion for Statistical Benchmarking

Add criterion as a dev-dependency with the cargo_bench_support feature, define a [[bench]] section in Cargo.toml with harness = false, and run benchmarks using cargo bench with the walltime feature.

[dev-dependencies]
criterion = { version = "0.8.2", default-features = false, features = ["cargo_bench_support"] }

[[bench]]
name = "float_add"
harness = false
required-features = ["walltime"]

cargo bench --features walltime --bench float_add

Criterion is a tool that runs your code many times to measure how fast it really is, ignoring random computer noise. You use it when you want to know if a new version of your code is faster than the old one. Think of it like a stopwatch that takes hundreds of photos of a race to find the true winner, rather than just timing one run.