[Shootout-list] Re: Total Characters vs Lines of Code

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Bengt Kleberg wrote:
>
> imho it is better to have a crude measurement, than none at
> all. there
> are many pitfalls in timing tests, but we still try with them.

The reason we try with timing tests is they're not make believe.
There's no point in making a crude measurement of nonsense.

I find myself surprised that anyone thinks LOC means anything nowadays.
I would have expected more sophistication out of computer science types
than that.  If LOC means anything at all, it is only a rough
distinguisher of program size.  One can usually say that programs with
1K, 10K, 100K, 1M, or 10M lines of code require progressively more
engineering effort.  But the programs in the Shootout are all trivial in
length.

To be useful, one would measure LOC for 'identical' large programs.  The
problem is, as programs become large, nobody wants to rewrite
'identical' versions of them in different languages.  They'd rather put
that work into something useful.  Thus, people spend time comparing the
length of trivial snippets, which isn't interesting.

Much as the length of "Hello World" isn't interesting.  For instance,
X11 may be more verbose to set up, but it buys you windows, network
transparency, and portability across many platforms.  A console "Hello
World" is much shorter, but it doesn't buy you the same things.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.