3 ms·

It doesn't have to be tribal, either.

silentOpen 14y ago
Is it really so hard to understand that the language shootout promotes the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language that the blog post author both dislikes (otherwise, why concern yourself over relatively pointless microbenchmarks of single implementations?) and reinforces (apparently "smoking" other languages is good?). What happened to objective assessment?
- igouy 14y ago
  Is it really so hard to understand that it hasn't been called the language shootout for over 5 years - and you are promoting "the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language" by talking about it in those terms? My guess is that your mistaken view of what the benchmarks game promotes reflects a lack of familiarity with what the website says about itself on the homepage and the Help page and the Conclusions page and ...
  - silentOpen 14y ago
    Is it really so hard to understand that it hasn't been called the language shootout for over 5 years - and you are promoting "the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language" by talking about it in those terms? The "benchmarks game" is largely the same as when it was called the "language shootout" now with more caveats plastered about. Please explain to me which language tribe I am promoting by calling the "benchmarks game" by its original name? Is it the tribe of skeptics? Perhaps use an HTTP 301 to redirect <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/&#62 http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/> to <http://microbenchmarks.alioth.debian.org/&#62 http://microbenchmarks.alioth.debian.org/> and expunge "shootout" from all names? My guess is that your mistaken view of what the benchmarks game promotes reflects a lack of familiarity with what the website says about itself on the homepage and the Help page and the Conclusions page and ... Instead of guessing what my "view" "reflects", consider what the "benchmarks game" has promoted in TFA: Title: "The Go Language is faster than the computer language benchmarks game thinks it is" Well, this isn't what the "benchmarks game" says it measures anywhere (in fact, the site explicitly decries this interpretation) and yet this is what it indirectly promotes in various language communities (and linkbait tastes good). Conclusion: "So Go should be between C and Clean, smoking scala, clojure, java and lisp." Again, this isn't what the site says it measures (it measures some aspects of some implementations, not languages) and yet this is how it is portrayed by third parties. I understand that it is difficult to give people a lot of 'easy' data and simultaneously educate them about the reasonable limits of inference based on those data. I understand that the benchmarks game has taken great pains to try to educate its readers and inform their conclusions. I don't know if it will ever be enough -- people (as we can see) like easy answers and aren't willing to 0.) do the work to get more complete data sets and 1.) temper their findings with objective reality instead of drawing misinformed conclusions. Do you see how the easily-digestible plots (indirectly) promote tribalism over rationality? Do you see how a plot is worth a thousand words?
    - igouy 14y ago
      Talking about the benchmarks game as a shootout promotes "the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language" -- I didn't say you were promoting a particular language tribe. >>Perhaps use an HTTP 301 to redirect<< Perhaps that was understood 5 years ago, and there are obstacles to that approach. (Not that I think that's actually why people like to talk about the shootout.) >>promoted in TFA<< Here you are -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544096 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544096 He's talking about this -- https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/KqA1Jlpu2nM/discussion https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/KqA1Jlpu2nM/di... He came up with it all by himself, the same way people make factorial performance comparisons. >>(and linkbait tastes good)<< This kind of traffic-less blog post isn't a benefit -- stackoverflow is by far the main source of link traffic, and much more traffic comes from direct search. >>Do you see how the easily-digestible plots (indirectly) promote tribalism over rationality?<< Do you see how you can intervene and explain what the plots actually say?
    - igouy 14y ago
      To be less adversarial, a passive website like the benchmarks game can never be enough, by itself, to educate and inform all (or even most) readers -- reading selectively is far too commonplace and errare humanum est. The benchmarks game is a resource. There are enough examples that when someone draws a misinformed conclusion, we can usually show them a counter-example and ask them to think.

Is it really so hard to understand that the language shootout promotes the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language that the blog post author both dislikes (otherwise, why concern yourself over relatively pointless microbenchmarks of single implementations?) and reinforces (apparently "smoking" other languages is good?). What happened to objective assessment?

igouy 14y ago
Is it really so hard to understand that it hasn't been called the language shootout for over 5 years - and you are promoting "the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language" by talking about it in those terms? My guess is that your mistaken view of what the benchmarks game promotes reflects a lack of familiarity with what the website says about itself on the homepage and the Help page and the Conclusions page and ...
- silentOpen 14y ago
  Is it really so hard to understand that it hasn't been called the language shootout for over 5 years - and you are promoting "the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language" by talking about it in those terms? The "benchmarks game" is largely the same as when it was called the "language shootout" now with more caveats plastered about. Please explain to me which language tribe I am promoting by calling the "benchmarks game" by its original name? Is it the tribe of skeptics? Perhaps use an HTTP 301 to redirect <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/&#62 http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/> to <http://microbenchmarks.alioth.debian.org/&#62 http://microbenchmarks.alioth.debian.org/> and expunge "shootout" from all names? My guess is that your mistaken view of what the benchmarks game promotes reflects a lack of familiarity with what the website says about itself on the homepage and the Help page and the Conclusions page and ... Instead of guessing what my "view" "reflects", consider what the "benchmarks game" has promoted in TFA: Title: "The Go Language is faster than the computer language benchmarks game thinks it is" Well, this isn't what the "benchmarks game" says it measures anywhere (in fact, the site explicitly decries this interpretation) and yet this is what it indirectly promotes in various language communities (and linkbait tastes good). Conclusion: "So Go should be between C and Clean, smoking scala, clojure, java and lisp." Again, this isn't what the site says it measures (it measures some aspects of some implementations, not languages) and yet this is how it is portrayed by third parties. I understand that it is difficult to give people a lot of 'easy' data and simultaneously educate them about the reasonable limits of inference based on those data. I understand that the benchmarks game has taken great pains to try to educate its readers and inform their conclusions. I don't know if it will ever be enough -- people (as we can see) like easy answers and aren't willing to 0.) do the work to get more complete data sets and 1.) temper their findings with objective reality instead of drawing misinformed conclusions. Do you see how the easily-digestible plots (indirectly) promote tribalism over rationality? Do you see how a plot is worth a thousand words?
  - igouy 14y ago
    Talking about the benchmarks game as a shootout promotes "the same sort of (misinformed) tribalism-by-language" -- I didn't say you were promoting a particular language tribe. >>Perhaps use an HTTP 301 to redirect<< Perhaps that was understood 5 years ago, and there are obstacles to that approach. (Not that I think that's actually why people like to talk about the shootout.) >>promoted in TFA<< Here you are -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544096 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544096 He's talking about this -- https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/KqA1Jlpu2nM/discussion https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/KqA1Jlpu2nM/di... He came up with it all by himself, the same way people make factorial performance comparisons. >>(and linkbait tastes good)<< This kind of traffic-less blog post isn't a benefit -- stackoverflow is by far the main source of link traffic, and much more traffic comes from direct search. >>Do you see how the easily-digestible plots (indirectly) promote tribalism over rationality?<< Do you see how you can intervene and explain what the plots actually say?
  - igouy 14y ago
    To be less adversarial, a passive website like the benchmarks game can never be enough, by itself, to educate and inform all (or even most) readers -- reading selectively is far too commonplace and errare humanum est. The benchmarks game is a resource. There are enough examples that when someone draws a misinformed conclusion, we can usually show them a counter-example and ask them to think.