On 5/4/2013 12:26 PM, Dave Smith wrote: > On May 4, 2013, at 12:36 AM, Tod Hansmann <[email protected]> wrote: >> The comparison of each execution is just asinine in the extreme. > I don't know why so many people think this exercise has been a waste of time. > I have learned several interesting things from it, and I really enjoyed it. > > I didn't say it was a waste of time, I said it was asinine. I can learn from two kids hitting each other over a toy, but it doesn't make it less stupid. I'd also point out that the excercise itself can actually be interesting, but that's not what I was commenting on. The asinine part is the comparison, it's the conclusion jumping of whether apples are better than oranges or not. Like Sasha says in his 5:01 MST email today, Haskell doesn't "beat" C. At what? Why does this matter? It doesn't, and yet that's the driver for Sasha for some reason.
It's exactly the same as comparing how X handgun is better/worse than Y hunting rifle. It's the same as comparing how X runner is better/worse than Y swimmer, but at the shotput. You might learn a lot about the human body and the shotput, and it might even be interesting, but the comparison is ridiculous. This is ignoring the "premature optimization" idea, which is arguably the point of the excercise so I'm not going to venture to discuss it. -Tod Hansmann /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
