> From: Eli Barzilay <e...@barzilay.org> > Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 8:11 PM > Subject: Re: [racket] Computer Language Benchmark Game
-snip- > When submissions are dropped because of a vague "it's too fast", > that's a bias. For sake of argument, I'll not even bother asking you to show where anyone wrote "it's too fast", let's just look at the reasoning. Here's a Python pidigits program that's about 50x faster than any of the other pidigits programs, and it was "dropped" immediately: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/performance.php?test=pidigits Of course, "it's too fast" is simply the reasonable suspicion that the Python program doesn't do what was asked (and it doesn't). > It's a pity since the shootout started as a showcase > of functional languages When it was started by Doug Bagley or when it was restarted by Brent Fulgham? What specific things about it then make you say it started as a showcase of functional languages? For sake of argument, IF it was started as a showcase of functional languages would it be reasonable to suspect there was bias towards functional languages? Perhaps your own viewpoint is not unbiased. -snip- > Now take a bunch of problems and throw them at a crown that tries to > compete for speed. In such a limited ecosystem the feedback loop is > much shorter and the propagation of fast solutions is much more > effective. That makes such competitions mostly nonsensical, since > that conceptual advantage of functional languages is practically lost. > That's not bias, it's the nature of things. But when such solutions > are *disqualified* and specs change to *forbid* them, then functional > languages lose this single advantage and get into a perpetual game of > mimicking C solutions. Back in the day someone complained that it was a "brick carrying contest" and that description is very appropriate - if you don't carry the same load of bricks then you aren't even in the contest. -snip- > instead of FP programmers quickly coming up with new > ways to solve problems efficiently Where has there been any suggestion that the benchmarks game website has anything to do with coming up with new ways to solve problems efficiently! -snip- > All of this is bias. (And it's the bad kind of > bias, one where one side is completely unaware of it. All they know > is that "memoization" is some kind of black magic that is obviously > cheating, and "obviously" we need to make sure that such cheating > doesn't happen and demand that no such tricks are played.) "brick carrying contest" >> Is there some way you think that differs from kindergarten >> name-calling? > > Yes. Please take petty flaming attempts elsewhere. When all you write is "generally biased" all you are doing is name-calling. ____________________ Racket Users list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/users