Dan Bron wrote: > What is the point of comparing languages if you're not allowed to use the > advantages intrinsic to each language? >
Dan: I agree with most of what you have written, and that is why I prefer Project Euler to the Shootout. In addition to the points you raise, it ranks on (thinking time)+(programming time)+(run time): that is, you are allowed to not think and instead write a simple program that takes a long time to run. Personally I think this is a good measure: how long does it take you to solve the problem? Many solvers are also able to vastly improve their solutions based on more time and seeing what others have done. >From looking at many solutions in many languages, I see many subtleties of programming languages that the Shootout cannot address. For example, if a problem can be solved using static arrays, a C program will beat the equivalent Java program. However, if some fancier data structure is required, the Java program will often win because the do-it-yourself implementation in C takes a long time to write as opposed to an off-the-shelf Java library, even though the C version may be faster in runtime. Best wishes, John ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
