For greater speed, values or strings? (I7)

Authoring Inform 7
1

I have a number of variables that could be handled by either new kinds of value or by strings. Example:

A person has a hair length.
The hair lengths are short, medium-length, and long.
Instead of examining a person: say “[The noun] has [hair length] hair.”

Or:

A person has some text called the hair length.
Instead of examining a person: say “[The noun] has [hair length] hair.”

Will one of these options run faster in Inform? (Assume a severe case - say, 20 such variables with 30 options in each.)

2

Texts will be slightly faster. But I don’t expect the difference to be significant, even at the scale you describe.

3

Thank you! I appreciate the info.