Re: [Chicken-users] [Chicken-hackers] Any thoughts on performance woes?

[Christian Kellermann]

* Felix Winkelmann <address@hidden> [150407 10:41]:
> But I'm sick and tired of people throwing badly written code into the
> net and making gross assumptions about implementation performance. The
> possible options, the search-space available is massive and a little
> difference in programming style can make a vast difference in
> performance.
> 
> Somehow there seems to be a large number of trolls that use some
> ridiculuous piece of code, run it with a handful of implementations
> (of course using suboptimal optimization options, since they really
> don't know what they're doing) and then generalize their results
> without the slightest bit of sense.

Nowadays anyone who knows how to use a stop watch (or the modern
equivalent time(1)) on some code (sometimes the first they write in a
new language) tends to publish the results as a generalized benchmark.
People have argued like this for ages, it's the all preserving google
cache that shows them all in your face at once if you ask for it. 

For my personal reading habit I will quickly decide not to read an
article/post if it contains "benchmark" or "performance" on a topic I am
truly interested in. Unless I still do of course :)

> That is (among a few other reasons) why I don't do much Scheme or Lisp
> programming anymore - thinking about the community, reading all this
> bullshit makes me sick.

comp.lang.lisp/scheme is in ruins for most things. But I would not say
that the 6-7 (regular) abusive posters there define the "community".

Driven by countless snobbish books and articles the (passive/)agressive
tone towards others seems to be *part* of the culture.

But I think this is somewhat changeing albeit slowly. This fine
community and its open attitude is one example but I have found guile
people and others equally attitude free (with exceptions on all sides of
course, but most of the active projects strive for a friendly
atmosphere). After all who wants to spend their free time around abusive
assholes?

So "don't despair" as a compiler once said, it's a nice day outside and
there's always enough bad code left to be laughed at (or deleted)
tomorrow.

Kind regards,

Christian

-- 
May you be peaceful, may you live in safety, may you be free from
suffering, and may you live with ease.