[Shootout-list] Safety vs. speed

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Peter Hinely wrote:
> Brandon Van Every wrote:
> >
> > The core mission is, or at least historically has been, performance.
> > If people want to expand the mission of the Shootout, if
> > they want to
> > make it very broad and encompass all aspects of language comparison,
>
> Actually the mission of the shootout has always been a "comprehensive
> language comparison", though maybe it wasn't implemented.
>
> See Doug Bagley's original description:
>   http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/index3.shtml
>
> Quotes:
> "When I started this project, my goal was to compare all the major
> scripting languages. ...  I saw a need for a more
> comprehensive language
> comparison than what I could find out on the Net, and you are
> reading my solution."

Doug Bagley didn't define his use of the term 'comprehensive'.  It could
mean comprehensive comparison of each and every aspect of a language, or
comprehensive comparison of language performance characteristics.  What
we do know, is that he presented 'his solution' and that its core
concern was performance.  You could ask him if he intended more than
that; it's not terribly relevant.  The reason the Shootout is famous is
because it dealt with performance.  Is it so wise to expand the mandate
to include every possible language advocacy issue under the sun?


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.