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>>He's saying that...<< Please let Veedrac speak for himself. Veedrac's saying a bunch of stuff -- saying it doesn't make trash-talk into The Truth(TM). >>fa

by igouy 11y ago

>>He's saying that...<< Please let Veedrac speak for himself. Veedrac's saying a bunch of stuff -- saying it doesn't make trash-talk into The Truth(TM). >>fastest benchmarks game programs cheat, relative to the slowest ones<< So programs that are compiled cheat, relative to programs that are interpreted? Seems like "cheat" needs to be in scare quotes.

kibwen 11y ago
Your defensiveness is unwarranted and your interpretation assumes bad faith. > So programs that are compiled cheat, relative to programs > that are interpreted? Programming languages whose dominant implementations are interpreted generally (though don't necessarily need to) provide less direct control over hardware, memory layout, and algorithms, and in practice will defer to C via FFI when such control is necessary. Because the benchmarks game generally prohibits calling out to C, it means that many "tricks" employed by low-level languages are unavailable to the higher-level languages. Whether or not this is a desirable property is up to the reader's interpretation. > Seems like "cheat" needs to be in scare quotes. Indeed, because it's essentially impossible to enforce anything like "idiomatic" code in any of the benchmarks game languages, and so whether a program is "cheating" is up to the reader's interpretation. That said, the fact that it is up to the reader's interpretation means that it is valid for some readers to conclude that some programs are "cheating", while other programmers may differ. Personally, I think the point is moot, and that microbenchmarks aren't worth getting so worked up over. :P
- igouy 11y ago
  >>... is valid for some readers to conclude that some programs are "cheating", while other programmers may differ.<< Which takes us back to the unanswered question -- Veedrac, are you saying that the benchmarks game programs you wrote "cheat" ?
  - kibwen 11y ago
    I think you've overlooked this part of his comment: "I say this as someone who spent a fair while optimizing the Rust benchmarks to use all of the hacks the other languages use" Do you think the C, C++, Haskell, etc. implementations "cheat"? :P
    - igouy 11y ago
      "cheat"? You seem to think programs not written to your notion of "idiomatic" code "cheat". I think that's just name-calling.

by igouy 11y ago

kibwen 11y ago

Your defensiveness is unwarranted and your interpretation assumes bad faith. > So programs that are compiled cheat, relative to programs > that are interpreted? Programming languages whose dominant implementations are interpreted generally (though don't necessarily need to) provide less direct control over hardware, memory layout, and algorithms, and in practice will defer to C via FFI when such control is necessary. Because the benchmarks game generally prohibits calling out to C, it means that many "tricks" employed by low-level languages are unavailable to the higher-level languages. Whether or not this is a desirable property is up to the reader's interpretation. > Seems like "cheat" needs to be in scare quotes. Indeed, because it's essentially impossible to enforce anything like "idiomatic" code in any of the benchmarks game languages, and so whether a program is "cheating" is up to the reader's interpretation. That said, the fact that it is up to the reader's interpretation means that it is valid for some readers to conclude that some programs are "cheating", while other programmers may differ. Personally, I think the point is moot, and that microbenchmarks aren't worth getting so worked up over. :P

igouy 11y ago
>>... is valid for some readers to conclude that some programs are "cheating", while other programmers may differ.<< Which takes us back to the unanswered question -- Veedrac, are you saying that the benchmarks game programs you wrote "cheat" ?
- kibwen 11y ago
  I think you've overlooked this part of his comment: "I say this as someone who spent a fair while optimizing the Rust benchmarks to use all of the hacks the other languages use" Do you think the C, C++, Haskell, etc. implementations "cheat"? :P
  - igouy 11y ago
    "cheat"? You seem to think programs not written to your notion of "idiomatic" code "cheat". I think that's just name-calling.