[Shootout-list] Ray tracer developments

[Brent Fulgham]

--- Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:
> 
> Given that the OCaml implementation is much shorter,
> am I allowed to use this "room" to implement a 
> slightly more efficient algorithm?
[ ... ]
> This reduces the time taken from 19.5s to 17.25s,
> compared to 17.3s for the 
> C++. The LOC has gone up from 69 to 80.

This is interesting -- it's a bonafide "in the wild"
example of two competing algorithms.  You are in
effect implementing a back-face culling routine,
which speeds up the Ocaml version.

While I think this is probably fair (since it's a
'same thing' test), I would be hard pressed to now
prohibit this optimization from the C++ version,
even though this adds more lines to the C++ version.
This change would return us to our former rankings,
so what have we gained?

Comments from everyone?

-Brent