Optimize tight/loose list parsing (new algorithm from commonmark-java)

[robinst]

Hey! The commonmark-java implementation was using the same algorithm as commonmark.js and cmark for determining whether a list is tight or loose. I recently re-implemented it because it showed up in a profiling session.

The results for the new algorithm are pretty good: a 10% performance improvement! See details here: commonmark/commonmark-java@cfd28fa

I'm opening this issue because you might be interested in porting it back to the reference implementations :). I don't know if the improvement will be as significant, but it's worth a try.

It works like this (but see the commit above for details):

• In the parser for list items:
  • in continue, remember when there was a blank line (except when a code block is being parsed)
  • in canContain (which is called when a new child will be added), set tight to false if we saw a blank line before
• In the parser for list blocks:
  • in continue, remember when we had a blank line (and how many lines back it was)
  • in canContain, set tight to false if the previous line was blank

(The new algorithm also feels simpler, hopefully there's no holes in it. It passes all the spec tests and some extra ones.)