Almost all other languages can use byte arrays, when they are the appropriate data structure for the job. The C submissions make heavy use of GCC extensions, Haskell gets to use mutable (OMG!) byte arrays and Free Pascal has about as much in common with Wirth's Pascal as the name.
But Python and Lua are not allowed to do that? Apparently not all languages are treated equally. Dismissing submissions by resorting to a flawed definition of 'standard' and then suppressing further debate is really lame.
I contributed almost all of the Lua programs to the shootout, but I do not feel particularly encouraged to continue contributing any programs.
"It's not used to do any crazy hackery like the LuaJIT one, just to access the libc write() function."
Obviously your opinion wasn't suppressed on proggit.
Obviously your opinion wasn't suppressed here.
And nothings been done to stop you posting in the discussion forum or commenting in the tracker.
'course, it'd be hard for LuaJIT to do much better in the shootout than it does now. It's beating C#.
But they are Lua programs measured on both the Lua interpreter and LuaJIT.
(Programs that rely on the LuaJIT only FFI library and won't work with the Lua interpreter are shown separately.)