Seriously, computer language shootout is just harmful. Those benchmarks are bad (but it's unclear whether cross-language comparisons can get much better), implementations are worse. And on top of that it does not include opitmized VMs like PyPy or LuaJIT (in fact, it does not include PyPy because we complained at some point).

All benchmarks come with the implicit disclaimer:

The best benchmark is always your application. All benchmarks are flawed, use your judgement and determine how flawed a benchmark is; Any flaws are relative to your application similarity to what the benchmark tests. An imperfect tool is not a useless tool, so long as you are smart about how you use it.

This is probably relevant too: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/dont-jump-to-conclus...

Those comparison pages come with an explicit wake-up call:

"These are not the only compilers and interpreters. These are not the only programs that could be written. These are not the only tasks that could be solved. These are just 10 tiny examples."

>> because we complained at some point <<

That's not true, and you already know that's not true.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4599431

Please stop making this pathetic accusation.

Oh, yes sorry, it was completely coincidental. It was correlated in time though.

>> It was correlated in time though. <<

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a well known fallacy.

Lest anyone forget that your repeated complaints don't withstand scrutiny -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4598737

Thanks! Great articles. We are not compute-bound for the near-term, so it's not our most important consideration. As the business evolves, we will embark on a fresh language war where compute performance is likely to be a key factor.

Note that in each case, Python has the smallest code. Generally, but not always, this means that people can address tasks quicker in Python.

For doing anything serious in Python, you will need unit tests. In my experience, they double the amount of code.

Haskell and Scala have static typing instead (and therefore need much less unit tests).