Re: [Caml-list] Great Programming Language Shootout Revived

[Brian Hurt <bhurt@spnz.org>]

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Sebastien Ferre wrote:

> What about counting characters instead (counting several spaces in
> a row as only one character) ? As most languages just don't mind
> where you cut the lines, this seems to me a more fair measure.
> Also, this would give complete freedom on the indentation style
> without resulting in any disadvantage for the language rank.
> 
> Just a suggestion :)
> 

Actually, the idea I like is to pick a standard compression algorithm- say 
gzip, or bzip2- and compress the files.  This actually gives you a decent 
approximation of the amount of information the soure code contains- and 
entire sidesteps a lot of issues.  In addition to newlines and indenting, 
it also minimizes the effect of variable name length.  For example, the 
average name length for ocaml programs is probably a lot shorter than the 
average name length for java programs.

-- 
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive,
difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of
mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."
                                - Gene Spafford 
Brian

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