From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id VAA22344; Sat, 19 Jun 2004 21:30:27 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA22600 for ; Sat, 19 Jun 2004 21:30:26 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from outbound28-2.lax.untd.com (outbound28-2.lax.untd.com [64.136.28.160]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with SMTP id i5JJUOEV002177 for ; Sat, 19 Jun 2004 21:30:25 +0200 Received: from outbound28-2.lax.untd.com (smtp04.lax.untd.com [10.130.24.124]) by smtpout03.lax.untd.com with SMTP id AABAPKFAYA58GTBJ for (sender ); Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:29:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 22633 invoked from network); 19 Jun 2004 19:28:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO vangogh) (66.42.38.67) by smtp04.lax.untd.com with SMTP; 19 Jun 2004 19:28:26 -0000 From: "Brandon J. Van Every" To: "caml" Subject: RE: [Caml-list] Benchmark suggestion Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:38:21 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <34996.217.95.201.40.1087635862.squirrel@btn1x1.inf.uni-bayreuth.de> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Importance: Normal X-ContentStamp: 14:7:4099661854 X-UNTD-OriginStamp: CI84cOLHFqh7Zd2QWkwvEFvwyO3T/pIsPQZphDk9MRiGQ+ITW5EWxABeDdREueI8 X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 40D49450.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; brandon:99 caml-list:01 shootout:01 inquiry:99 interfacing:01 seattle:99 sanity:01 brandon:99 seattle:99 2004:99 -bit:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 sig:01 sig:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk Wolfgang Müller wrote: > > 2. Graduate students with the usual experience in functional and > imperative/OO programming solve the problem given ample > documentation of > the language and three days of time (like the ICFP contest?). > > This would give an idea if one reaches reasonably quickly > useful results > when switching to a given language. In my experience OCaml is > also very good at that. > > What do you think about these ideas? I think one has to define the motivation for the benchmark. Is it language evangelism, i.e. making people aware of OCaml? or of FP languages generally? If language evangelism is the point, then one should look at *all* the factors that go into picking new languages. The devil's in the details. For instance, the Shootout led me to OCaml, but further inquiry is leading me towards Standard ML because it has better int / 32-bit float / C interfacing. These efficiency concerns are rather important to me, they affect the most basic ways that I personally program. It's way easier for me to learn to blow off OO than to try to add such things to OCaml. I'm still going to organize a Seattle SIG, but I'm going to re-Christen it as an "ML" SIG. I'm reasonably convinced that ML is the right language family for my problems, it's just down to which ML is best for my specific needs. Actually I think comparative benchmarking for some goal other than evangelism is kinda pointless. If you want your own app to go faster at something, you write a benchmark for your own app. You only look at app-app or snippet-snippet comparisons when you're trying to decide which option to pick. Otherwise why are you bothering? You are wasting your time. I do mean *time*, with my OpenGL device driver background I'm very conscious of how much production time benchmarking consumes. Even when you have all the tests already written and you're just running them. It takes time to run and analyze the results of a benchmark. I've learned not to sit around running benchmarks all day, as that's not coding. It's better to develop instincts about what optimizations are worth it, and sanity check those instincts with benchmarks a few times in a week. I'd say the same for picking languages. I have a lot of instincts about language evangelism now, having looked at so many of them in the past year. Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA 20% of the world is real. 80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.708 / Virus Database: 464 - Release Date: 6/18/2004 ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners