[Shootout-list] word-frequency

[Nicolas Neuss]

Hello,

after Eric Lavigne and me wrote the CMUCL code for the word-frequency
benchmark, I looked how some languages manage to be even shorter than our
version.  As much as I see, the main reason is that the requirements of the
word frequency shootout are artificial (words have to be ordered in
decreasing frequency AND reverse alphabetical order).  This allows for the
trick of sorting the strings obtained by concatenating word and frequency.
IMO, this is a kludge because it only works for that unnatural alphabetical
ordering.

Question: wouldn't it be more telling about the power of a language, if the
natural ordering (decreasing word frequency, correct alphabetical order)
was required?  Why should one contort a good test for allowing a kludge?

Any comments?

Nicolas.

P.S.: I know too little about how the shootout mechanism works, so the
following suggestion may not be the best.  My prefered solution would be to
add another word frequency test with the natural ordering and to mark the
existing one deprecated.