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From: David Allsopp <dra-news@metastack.com>
To: Isaac Gouy <igouy2@yahoo.com>, "caml-list@inria.fr" <caml-list@inria.fr>
Subject: RE: [Caml-list] Re: Is OCaml fast?
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:59:42 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <E51C5B015DBD1348A1D85763337FB6D92C58EC17@Remus.metastack.local> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <loom.20101124T192532-995@post.gmane.org>

Isaac Gouy wrote:
> David Allsopp <dra-news <at> metastack.com> writes:
> 
> -snip-
> > Reducing an entire programming language's strengths (or
> > weaknesses!) to a single number is just not really realistic - the
> > truth is more complex than one single-precision floating point 
> > number (or even an array of them) can describe. (NB. The shootout
> > doesn't claim that the final ranking displayed is anything other than
> > a score of how well the languages did
> > at the various benchmarks given - but a graph like that is easy to
> > interpret erroneously in that way)
> -snip-
> 
> That summary page
> 
> > > (http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/which-programming-languages-a
> > > re-
> > > fastest.php)
> 
> shows box plots (quartiles, outliers, median) of the normalized timing
> measurements for each of the tasks, for each of the language
> implementations.
> 
> A graph like that shows some of those language implementations are very
> fast for some benchmark programs and very slow for others.

I'm not sure I disputed that anywhere, in fact I think if anything implicitly agreed with it...

> To characterize that as "reducing an entire programming language's
> strengths (or weaknesses!) to a single number" seems kind-of misleading.

I'm not clear how you extracted that from what I said which was that reducing a programming language to a single number (or three numbers, if you want bars) is not a good summary of the *total* strengths of that programming language. I then went on to stress that the combined results from the shootout don't claim to do that, they simply show an interpretation of the combined results from the different benchmarks.

My attempt at a point was that ranking programming languages (that's just "programming languages" not "execution speed of programming languages") is a largely futile activity, because it's just too subjective and hard to quantify in a rigorous manner, and importantly that the shootout doesn't try to do that. The relevance and value of that point to Thanassis' original question is for him to decide...

> Especially when the question that page answers is stated 3 times - "Which
> programming language implementations have the fastest benchmark programs?"

Which part of my statement "The shootout doesn't claim that the final ranking displayed is anything other than a score of how well the languages did at the various benchmarks given" (prefixed with the Latin abbreviation for "Note well") caused you to need to write this?


David


  reply	other threads:[~2010-11-24 21:04 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 113+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2010-11-22 13:21 Thanassis Tsiodras
2010-11-22 13:35 ` [Caml-list] " Gregory Bellier
2010-11-22 13:39   ` Lukasz Stafiniak
2010-11-22 13:42   ` Thomas Fischbacher
2010-11-22 13:43 ` Sylvain Le Gall
2010-11-22 13:55 ` [Caml-list] " Dario Teixeira
2010-11-23  2:11   ` Isaac Gouy
     [not found]   ` <999386690.746882.1290478813177.JavaMail.root@zmbs4.inria.fr>
2010-11-23  9:12     ` [Caml-list] " Fabrice Le Fessant
2010-11-23 17:56       ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 19:54         ` [Caml-list] " Mark Diekhans
2010-11-23 20:04           ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 22:56   ` [Caml-list] " oliver
2010-11-23 23:54     ` Jon Harrop
2010-11-24  1:24       ` Erik de Castro Lopo
2010-11-25 11:17         ` Jon Harrop
2010-11-22 14:04 ` Gerd Stolpmann
2010-11-22 14:22   ` [was: Re: Is OCaml fast?] OCaml Shootout task force Sylvain Le Gall
2010-11-22 14:36   ` [Caml-list] Is OCaml fast? bluestorm
2010-11-22 15:01     ` Török Edwin
2010-11-22 15:54       ` Goswin von Brederlow
2010-11-22 15:02     ` Gerd Stolpmann
     [not found]     ` <582306206.731582.1290438133628.JavaMail.root@zmbs4.inria.fr>
2010-11-22 16:46       ` Fabrice Le Fessant
2010-11-22 18:33         ` Török Edwin
2010-11-27 21:11           ` Pierre Etchemaïté
2010-11-28 13:26             ` OCaml GC [was Is OCaml fast?] Christophe Raffalli
2010-11-28 14:29               ` [Caml-list] " Benedikt Meurer
2010-11-28 18:57                 ` Eray Ozkural
2010-11-28 19:40                   ` Jon Harrop
2010-11-28 19:59                     ` Benedikt Meurer
2010-11-28 23:34                       ` Jon Harrop
2010-11-29 12:11                         ` Benedikt Meurer
2010-11-29 22:27                 ` Török Edwin
     [not found]                 ` <916556265.243293.1291069665032.JavaMail.root@zmbs1.inria.fr>
2010-12-02 12:57                   ` Damien Doligez
2010-12-02 15:07                     ` Török Edwin
2010-12-03 21:42                       ` [Caml-list] optimizing caml_modify [was OCaml GC [was Is OCaml fast?]] ygrek
2010-11-23  2:03     ` Is OCaml fast? Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 10:37       ` [Caml-list] " Christophe TROESTLER
2010-11-23 15:50         ` Jon Harrop
2010-11-23 18:06           ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 21:34             ` [Caml-list] " Jon Harrop
2010-11-23 16:08         ` Jon Harrop
2010-11-23 18:03           ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 19:14             ` [Caml-list] " Török Edwin
2010-11-23 20:17               ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 21:14             ` [Caml-list] " Christophe TROESTLER
2010-11-23 21:55               ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 22:25             ` [Caml-list] " Richard Jones
2010-11-24  0:11               ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 17:53         ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 19:24           ` [Caml-list] " Gerd Stolpmann
2010-11-23 20:28             ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 20:55               ` [Caml-list] " Gerd Stolpmann
2010-11-23 21:32                 ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24 22:28             ` [Caml-list] " Goswin von Brederlow
2010-11-23 23:21           ` evil sloot
2010-11-24  6:54             ` [Caml-list] " David Rajchenbach-Teller
2010-11-22 17:02   ` [Caml-list] " Oliver Bandel
2010-11-22 17:08     ` David Rajchenbach-Teller
2010-11-22 17:23       ` Oliver Bandel
2010-11-22 17:54         ` David Rajchenbach-Teller
2010-11-22 23:55         ` Jeff Schultz
2010-11-22 23:28       ` Eray Ozkural
2010-11-23  2:01       ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23 23:27         ` [Caml-list] " oliver
2010-11-24  0:23           ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24  1:36             ` [Caml-list] " Eray Ozkural
2010-11-24  2:13               ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24  4:39                 ` [Caml-list] " Jeff Meister
2010-11-24  6:22                   ` Andrew
2010-11-24  7:16                     ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24  6:50                   ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24 10:24                     ` [Caml-list] " Christophe Troestler
2010-11-24 11:33                       ` Eray Ozkural
2010-11-24 17:32                       ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24 17:57                         ` [Caml-list] " Christophe Raffalli
2010-11-24 19:07                         ` Ed Keith
2010-11-24 19:13                           ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24 19:17                             ` [Caml-list] " David Rajchenbach-Teller
2010-11-24 22:25                               ` Oliver Bandel
2010-11-25 16:59                   ` Stefan Monnier
2010-11-25 18:21                     ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-25 22:11                     ` [Caml-list] " Jon Harrop
     [not found]                     ` <1534555381.33107.1290723160355.JavaMail.root@zmbs4.inria.fr>
2010-11-25 22:50                       ` Fabrice Le Fessant
2010-11-26 20:25                         ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-27 18:55                         ` Stefan Monnier
2010-11-28 18:14                         ` [Caml-list] " oliver
2010-11-29 14:19                           ` Gerd Stolpmann
2010-11-29 16:12                             ` Threading and SharedMem (Re: [Caml-list] Re: Is OCaml fast?) Oliver Bandel
2010-11-29 16:24                               ` Gerd Stolpmann
2010-11-29 16:33                                 ` Oliver Bandel
2010-11-27 15:58                     ` [Caml-list] Re: Is OCaml fast? Christophe Raffalli
2010-11-28 18:17                       ` oliver
2010-11-29  7:33                         ` Christophe Raffalli
2010-11-29 11:25                           ` Jon Harrop
2010-11-29 11:44                             ` oliver
2010-11-29 17:29                               ` Christophe Raffalli
2010-11-24  6:55               ` David Rajchenbach-Teller
2010-11-24  7:23                 ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-23  2:06   ` Isaac Gouy
     [not found] ` <1110536178.728445.1290434684177.JavaMail.root@zmbs4.inria.fr>
2010-11-22 16:39   ` [Caml-list] " Fabrice Le Fessant
2010-11-22 17:21     ` Philippe Strauss
2010-11-22 18:33 ` Oliver Bandel
2010-11-23  1:58 ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24 10:29 ` [Caml-list] " David Allsopp
2010-11-24 18:39   ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24 20:59     ` David Allsopp [this message]
2010-11-25  0:16       ` Isaac Gouy
2010-11-24 14:07 ` [Caml-list] " Cedric Cellier
2010-11-24 14:34 ` Vincent Aravantinos
2010-11-24 15:30   ` Thanassis Tsiodras
2010-11-24 16:26     ` Oliver Bandel
2010-11-24 16:27     ` Vincent Aravantinos
2010-11-24 18:16 ` Isaac Gouy

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