[Shootout-list] Directions of various benchmarks

[John Skaller]

On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 09:43 -0700, Brent Fulgham wrote:

> But seriously -- should we require all benchmark
> proposals state the algorithm using some kind of
> formal language?

Algorithms don't make sense in declarative languages,
and algorithm is recipe for what a program should DO,
and declarative languages, by their nature, do NOT consist
of instructions to 'DO' anything.

We should specify the required result of the benchmark,
which can be done by saying 'the result must be the
same as this Java program': Java can be regarded as
a Formal language. It would help to add comments to
say 'this is a bubble sort', but that isn't a requirement
only a hint.

-- 
John Skaller, skaller at users.sf.net
PO Box 401 Glebe, NSW 2037, Australia Ph:61-2-96600850 
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