Any comments on
--
set a to "b"
set b to {}
set i to 0
set t0 to do shell script "perl -e 'print time'"
repeat while i < 10000
    set i to i + 1
    set a to a & "a"
end repeat
set b to text items of a
set t1 to do shell script "perl -e 'print time'"

set i to 0
set t2 to do shell script "perl -e 'print time'"
repeat while i < 10000
    set i to i + 1
    set end of b to "a"
end repeat
set t3 to do shell script "perl -e 'print time'"

{t1 - t0, t3 - t2}
-- 

(well, other than the increasingly peculiar semi-circular reasoning of something like do shell script "perl -e 'print time'")

Christian