[Haskell-cafe] In-place modification

[Sebastian Sylvan]

On 15/07/07, Hugh Perkins <hughperkins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/15/07, Sebastian Sylvan <sebastian.sylvan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I thought the point wasn't to compare programmer's creativity, but to
> > compare languages?
> >
>
> Sebastian, you cant directly compare languages, you can only compare the
> results of a pairing between developers and those languages.

Sure you can. Keep the programmer and the algorithm constant, and swap
out the languages. Or have multiple programmers
collaborating/competing on implementing the same algorithm on both
side, converging on an "optimum" for each language, and compare the
results (this is what the shootout does).

Kudos on managing to completely sidestep the two suggested benchmarks
by complaining that one of them isimaginary. Because, you know, your
primes program was such a great example of a real-world application.
You don't think that multiple agents interacting in a concurrent
setting is representative for real programs? It is, and by simplifying
it down to the core problem, you can test the "difficult bit" far more
easily than if you were to require everyone to write a full-on telecom
operatings sytem, or any other application that's concurrent in the
same style, for each language you want to compare.

-- 
Sebastian Sylvan
+44(0)7857-300802
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