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Weblog:   The Python comunity has too many deceptive XML benchmarks
Subject:   Closing the matter, for my part
Date:   2005-01-26 08:24:43
From:   uche
First of all, I apologize to the community for my part in dragging this issue to the unfortunate depths to which it has come. I certainly think I was justified some fury by some disgraceful and unnecessary allegations by one individual, but I might have kept this fury a private matter with the offender.


My intent was always to provide code and discussion towards a useful set of benchmarks for the Python community, but clearly this has proved an area where no sensible conversation is possible. My code is still available in the article, and if anyone is interested, they can do with it what they will. I personally have too much real work on my hands to continue with a matter whose contentiousness so far outweighs its importance.

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Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

  • Closing the matter, for my part
    2005-01-26 20:40:31  calcium [Reply | View]

    Wouldnt the whole thing be closer to resolution, if the benchmark tests were re-run by a 3rd party. That way, the numbers would be in-disputable...

    I must admit the pystone numbers do sound a bit off...

    If u guys send me your (non-viral) scripts, I'm happy to run it on my XP1600 and post the impartial results (though I must admit I own a copy of the OReilly book by Mr Lundh).

    Easy solution, no?
    Now to the middle east.....
    • Closing the matter, for my part
      2005-01-27 01:40:25  faassen [Reply | View]

      Well, there's some debate (at least from my side :) about how such benchmarks ought to be run, but see Robert Kern's benchmarks in another posting.
      • Closing the matter, for my part
        2005-01-27 02:46:56  faassen [Reply | View]

        (that's not to say I am debating Robert Kern's choices, which I haven't examined in detail, I'm debating Uche's)
  • Closing the matter, for my part
    2005-01-26 09:01:12  faassen [Reply | View]

    > My intent was always to provide code and
    > discussion towards a useful set of benchmarks
    > for the Python community, but clearly this has
    > proved an area where no sensible conversation
    > is possible.

    You may not realize this, but this is rather offensive to myself (and probably others). In my
    mind at least I've been been engaged in entirely sensible conversation about your benchmarks. I certainly believe sensible conversation is possible. If you believe my comments and suggestions are insensible, please point it out. You just declared them thus, after all.

    Perhaps you just read my comments as part of a Fredrik-driven attack, or something, but I have been benchmarking XML the whole month now and I'm genuinely interested in improving the way we do benchmarks. I'm also curious about what went wrong with your particular attempt, and how to do it better next time.

    I've asked a number of questions about this article, the benchmarks proposed in them and the benchmark results you get. There are some discrepancies which I'd like explained so we can avoid them in the future. I also think that the approach you take was not entirely correct (measuring Python startup time too, possibly printing to terminal), so I've been pointing that out too.

    Instead of answering my comments and those of others, you've been focusing on Fredrik, whose benchmarks it is of course what prompted you to write the whole article in the first place. It's not a surprise Fredrik feels attacked. But a more
    civil response from him would've been more productive.

    This leads to the question whether you yourself are at all interested in calmly improving the
    Python XML benchmarking story. You've certainly been ignoring any civil attempts on my side to help doing so.

    It would be unfortunate if I have to go home with the conclusion that this article was only written because you felt threatened by Fredrik's benchmarks, instead of what I'd prefer to believe: that you want to improve the way we benchmark XML libraries in Python.

Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.