benchmark

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:12:04 -0700, alex23 wrote:

> On Aug 7, 8:08 pm, M8R-n7v... at mailinator.com wrote:
>> Really how silly can it be when you suggest someone is taking a
>> position and tweaking the benchmarks to prove a point [...]
> 
> I certainly didn't intend to suggest that you had tweaked -anything- to
> prove your point.
> 
> I do, however, think there is little value in slavishly implementing the
> same algorithm in different languages. To constrain a dynamic language
> by what can be achieved in a static language seemed like such an
> -amazingly- artificial constraint to me.

I don't know about that... it can be very useful to (say) demonstrate 
that Lisp-style lists are fast in Lisp, and slow in Python. Or that 
try...except is fast in Python, and slow in Java.

And if your aim is to compare languages, then it's only fair to keep the 
algorithm constant. Imagine how we would holler and shout if the 
benchmark compared Ruby using Quicksort and Python using Bubblesort.

I guess what some of us are complaining about is that the algorithm 
chosen doesn't suit Python's execution model very well, and hence Python 
is slow. If the algorithm chosen had suited Python, and hence Python came 
up looking really fast, we'd be ecstatic. How about that, hey? *wink*

...
> Honestly, performance benchmarks seem to be the dick size comparison of
> programming languages.

I can't disagree with that one bit.


-- 
Steven