From: Isaac Gouy <igouy@...>
Date: 2005-06-13T09:35:30+09:00
Subject: Re: python/ruby benchmark(don't shoot the messenger)



Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 6/12/05, Isaac Gouy <igouy@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Austin Ziegler wrote:
> > -snip-
> > > Never *once* have I needed to implement an Ackermann function. Not
> > > once. In my entire career. I look at the crap that is on alioth and
> > > there's very little that represents common use. There's some neat
> > > things -- the new DNA transformation ones -- but exactly how many
> > > people will actually be using that in their work?
> > Never once needed to implement a recursive function?
>
> Not an Ackermann recursive. Only simple recursive. Most of the time, I
> haven't even needed that. There's an important point there. Indeed, I
> have sometimes gone in and changed recursive into iterative because it
> was too expensive to implement as recursion.

And in some other language implementations that change is unecessary -
perhaps that's the point.

-snip-
> And that's the damnable thing about the whole alioth shootout -- you
> refuse to take an editorial stance anywhere (well, sort of) on the
> interpretation of the numbers, leaving them to stand on their own --
> which leads to people making stupid assumptions about them.
-snip-

Alioth Shootout - a Rorschach test for programmers.