Regehr: GCC 4.8 Breaks Broken SPEC 2006 Benchmarks

Posted Mar 27, 2013 15:16 UTC (Wed) by redden0t8 (guest, #72783)
In reply to: Regehr: GCC 4.8 Breaks Broken SPEC 2006 Benchmarks by khim
Parent article: Regehr: GCC 4.8 Breaks Broken SPEC 2006 Benchmarks

Interesting observation, it really made me think.

I'm definitely a C-thinker, but over-shortening code (like in this article's example) really makes me cringe. I really don't understand the drive to make pieces of code as short as possible. I'm more along the lines of "clear and concise", with "clear" being more important than "concise". I guess you could think of it as writing code so as to optimize the time it takes to read and follow, rather than optimizing the line count.

Then again maybe this comes from being a hobbyist programmer and not a professional... maybe I just have a different definition of "clear" lol.

Regehr: GCC 4.8 Breaks Broken SPEC 2006 Benchmarks

Posted Mar 27, 2013 17:43 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

The balance between clear and concise will vary depending on how familiar you are with the language in question.

the obfuscated C contest shows clear examples where concise is far more important than clear.

But the line itself if rather fuzzy.

hijacking an example from elsewhere. If you have a bucket filled with water and start punching holes in the bottom, when does it stop being a bucket that leaks and start being a sieve? At some point it will be very clear that you have passed the line, but exactly where the line is is hard to define.