I was looking at code.golf the other day and I wondered which languages were the least verbose, so I did a little data gathering.
I looked at 48 different languages that had completed 79 different code challenges on code.golf. I then gathered the results for each language and challenge. If a “golfer” had more than 1 submission to a challenge, I grabbed the most recent one. I then dropped the top 5% and bottom 5% to hopefully mitigate most outliers. Then came up with an average for each language, for each challenge. I then averaged the results across each language and that is what you see here.
For another perspective, I ranked each challenge then got the average ranking across all challenges. Below is the results of that.
Disclaimer: This is in no way scientific. It’s just for fun. If you know of a better way to sort these results please let me know.
Java placed way better than I expected
I wonder if it’s all those variables named with single letter and abbreviations, so annoying to code review
String IDontKnowWhatsWorseEspeciallyWhenTheTypeIsAlsoIncludedString = “I don’t know what’s worse, especially when the type is also included”;
Honestly, I prefer an overly long name over some cryptic naming scheme that looks like minified JS. At least you can be sure of the variable’s purpose and don’t have to guess, which is far better for readability.
System.out.print("I agree.");Don’t you mean:
class AgreementManagerClass { public static void main(String[] args) { System.out.println("I agree."); } }
I’d love to see the same comparison with more real-world use-cases.
Code golf, is mostly pretty simple use-cases, which have been optimized many times over.
When, you build out an application with a user-interface, proper event handling, etc… c++ is MUCH more verbose then c# for example, and they are ranked pretty close together.
