[E-Lang] empirical and statistical comparison of languages

[zooko@zooko.com]

 MarkM wrote:

> >It is an interesting observation that despite the existence
> >of hash table implementations in both the Java and
> >the C++ class libraries none of the non-script programmers
> >used them (but rather implemented a tree solution by hand),
> >whereas for the script programmers the hash tables built
> >into the language were the obvious choice.
> >that need to handle fair amounts of computation and
> >data. Their relative run time and memory consumption
> >overhead will often be acceptable and they may
> >offer significant advantages with respect to programmer
> >productivity =97 at least for small programs like the
> 
> A very interesting observation.  Unfortunately, in a quick skim, I didn't
> see that he anywhere speculated on why.


My current hypothesis is that if library ships with the interpreter, then it
gets used, and if you have to download it separately it doesn't.  My experience
with Python (and its beautiful `module index'[1]) suggests that all kinds of
occasionally-useful things ought to be shipped with the interpreter.


Regards,

Zooko

[1]  http://python.org/doc/current/lib/modindex.html