ogilthorpe / davie.textdrive.com wrote:
> >> When you follow the Ruby vs Perl link, you are treated to a nice picture
> >> and some numbers, all of which (you would assume from reading the page)
> >> offer some insight into the comparative merits of the languages.
> >>
> >> In this case, the site _does_ proclaim a winner in any number of
> >> categories.
> >
> > Yes - under said conditions, said program X was measured to be A,B,C
> > and said program Y was measured to be D,E,F.
> >
> > imo that's not The issue.
>
>  Aha! It appears that this is where we'll have to agree to disagree.  For
> me this is The issue.  There were no conditions mentioned on the page
> that you linked to.
>
> There are so many factors that contribute to any measure of performance
> for a "program" that any comparison must be qualified to the point of
> irrelevance.  Some such factors might be:
>
> - Compiled vs Interpreted
> -- Implementation of the Compiler/Interpreter
> --- Version of the implementation

The specific implementation and version is given at the bottom of the
page I linked to
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=ruby&sort=fullcpu#about


> -- Compilation flags
Are shown for each program, they may vary program to program, for
example
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/benchmark.php?test=ackermann&lang=gcc&id=3&sort=fullcpu#log


> - Implementation of the algorithm
> -- Suitability of the implementation to the algorithm
Not sure exactly what you mean, perhaps this
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/benchmark.php?test=ackermann&lang=all&sort=fullcpu#about


> - System Environment and its affects on the execution environment.
Is given in the FAQ
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/faq.php?sort=fullcpu#measure


> I could spend all day listing considerations like these.  To attempt to
> boil all of this down to one number for any measure of performance is
> naive.  These numbers aren't useful to the casual observer who will
> misunderstand them, nor are they useful to the person who spends the time
> to investigate the execution environment and draw their own conclusions.
>
> Good luck with the site Isaac.  I hope that it continues to go well for
> you and that ou continue to learn from it.

Thank you.