Analysis of programming languages on Rosetta

[bearophile via Digitalmars-d]

Joakim:

> So Haskell programmers don't care about fast programs and don't 
> know how to choose good algorithms? ;)

Haskell programmers that write the Rosettacode entries usually 
care for code succinctness and code simplicity more than they 
care for performance (and I think they are often right). Often 
the best algorithms requires longer programs.

You can see it very well here:
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Iterated_digits_squaring


> I understand that Rosettacode is not geared towards 
> performance, but that's why it makes a good sample for the 
> authors of idiomatic code in each language,

Look at the four D entries I have written for that 
Iterated_digits_squaring task. I think all the first three 
entries are idiomatic, but their run-time varies wildly. Saying 
"idiomatic code" is not enough. You can write a very idiomatic 
Haskell entry that's much faster than the basic currently present.


> albeit potentially skewed by the skill of the volunteers 
> contributing.  What's interesting is that the performance 
> results for most of the other languages are about what I'd 
> expect, except for Haskell.

See the answer on Stackoverflow from the maintainer of the 
Computer Game site. You see there are other strange results in 
that study.


> Good to see you put so much time into publicizing D,

The Rosetta code site is far more important/interesting than just 
publicizing languages. And I have written entries in several 
other languages too.


> but I wonder how well-known that site is,

It's sufficiently known, but perhaps only for certain 
programmers. The ones that care about the design of programming 
languages are more likely to know it.

Bye,
bearophile