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I'm suggesting that "idiomatic" code in real software can perform so poorly that the real software is unfit for purpose. Hence "idiomatic" may represent not "r

by igouy 6y ago

I'm suggesting that "idiomatic" code in real software can perform so poorly that the real software is unfit for purpose. Hence "idiomatic" may represent not "real code" but "naive code".

throwaway894345 6y ago
Fair enough, but I don't see how that relates to the conversation. Is that intended to rebut the idea that it's useful to know about the performance of idiomatic software?
- igouy 6y ago
  You don't seem to have said "it's useful to know about the performance of idiomatic software".
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I’m not the one you were originally responding to but it seemed pretty clear that that’s what they were getting at.
    - igouy 6y ago
      It seems clear that they conflated "idiomatic" code with "real code" into a subjective dismissal. Do you intend to provide some support for your idea that "it's useful to know about the performance of idiomatic software"?
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        > It seems clear that they conflated "idiomatic" code with "real code" into a subjective dismissal. No, they're dismissing it as useful for answering the questions we tend to care about when evaluating the performance of various programming languages. One such question is "If I choose a given language, how far will I be able to go with just idiomatic code before I need to invest in expensive optimizations (most of the expense here is that we're spending time optimizing instead of iterating on features)?". "Real code" is a function of this concern, so measuring it doesn't help us answer this question (i.e., if a language performs poorly on this question, "real code" will be more optimized and less idiomatic). Further, microbenchmarks don't measure "real code" either they maximally optimized code, which is what the OP was complaining about.
        igouy 6y ago
        > One such question… Your question is sensibly answered by — It depends.

by igouy 6y ago

I'm suggesting that "idiomatic" code in real software can perform so poorly that the real software is unfit for purpose. Hence "idiomatic" may represent not "real code" but "naive code".

throwaway894345 6y ago

Fair enough, but I don't see how that relates to the conversation. Is that intended to rebut the idea that it's useful to know about the performance of idiomatic software?

igouy 6y ago
You don't seem to have said "it's useful to know about the performance of idiomatic software".
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I’m not the one you were originally responding to but it seemed pretty clear that that’s what they were getting at.
  - igouy 6y ago
    It seems clear that they conflated "idiomatic" code with "real code" into a subjective dismissal. Do you intend to provide some support for your idea that "it's useful to know about the performance of idiomatic software"?
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      > It seems clear that they conflated "idiomatic" code with "real code" into a subjective dismissal. No, they're dismissing it as useful for answering the questions we tend to care about when evaluating the performance of various programming languages. One such question is "If I choose a given language, how far will I be able to go with just idiomatic code before I need to invest in expensive optimizations (most of the expense here is that we're spending time optimizing instead of iterating on features)?". "Real code" is a function of this concern, so measuring it doesn't help us answer this question (i.e., if a language performs poorly on this question, "real code" will be more optimized and less idiomatic). Further, microbenchmarks don't measure "real code" either they maximally optimized code, which is what the OP was complaining about.
      - igouy 6y ago
        > One such question… Your question is sensibly answered by — It depends.