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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.

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[-] dill@lemmy.one 55 points 1 year ago

Java placed way better than I expected

[-] bleistift2@feddit.de 32 points 1 year ago

You can write concise Java. Just like you can write readable Haskell. It’s just not idiomatic to do so.

[-] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago

System.out.print("I agree.");

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[-] kaba0@programming.dev 14 points 1 year ago

It is always dismissed as too verbose, while in go’s case it is never mentioned, when in fact the latter is way more verbose.. People’s bias show.

[-] coloredgrayscale@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago

Maybe also bias by the number / experience of people using it.

1st semester students getting shocked by public static void main(String args) and meming it on the internet.

Go on the other hand likely isn't a common choice / option for a first language.

[-] dill@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago

I will gladly complain any day about go being terribly verbose.

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[-] xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 1 year ago

Code Golf rules allow people to submit an anonymous function instead of a full program, which eliminates a lot of the boilerplate.

[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

They weren't writing enterprise Java or they'd need a dozen factories and a few factory factories and probably a factory factory factory just to be safe.

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[-] atheken@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago

I don’t know the specifics of the golf problems, but I’m mostly in c#, also notorious for “having too much boilerplate,” and it looks like it’s 3rd by char count.

My guess is that languages with comprehensive standard libraries can do more with less custom code. As you should expect.

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[-] muddi@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

I wonder if it's all those variables named with single letter and abbreviations, so annoying to code review

[-] GarytheSnail@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

String IDontKnowWhatsWorseEspeciallyWhenTheTypeIsAlsoIncludedString = "I don't know what's worse, especially when the type is also included";

[-] BlueBockser@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] xtremeownage@lemmyonline.com 31 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] Charliebeans@slrpnk.net 24 points 1 year ago

Not expected C# to be this high. Also did not expected F# be so far away from C#.

[-] AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah that seems suspicious. F# is pretty succinct.

[-] Mot@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

My guess is that this is really a measure of how much abuse the language will tolerate. C# probably lets you get away with a bunch of things (like checking for nulls) that F# requires.

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[-] philm@programming.dev 22 points 1 year ago

On another look, though, we have to keep in mind, though that this is code-golf, so in no way representative for actual code-bases.

[-] expr@programming.dev 18 points 1 year ago

Haskell being so high really doesn't make any sense. Experience level maybe?

It's one of the tersest languages out there.

[-] ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub 10 points 1 year ago

Bash being so high is what confuses me.

Damn near everything is an acronym

[-] peter@feddit.uk 9 points 1 year ago

I guess it takes more calls to different programs to do a task

[-] arthur@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago

It's hard make such comparisons on "real world" code, and challenges use to be more attractive to people trying to learn, so your hypothesis make sense.

[-] spencerwi@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm really surprised to see Java ranked as less-verbose than OCaml.

Here's an equivalent code sample in Java 17 vs OCaml:

Java:

abstract sealed class Expr permits Value, Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide {
  abstract long eval();
}
record Value(long value) extends Expr {
  @Override
  long eval() { return value; }
}
record Add(Expr left, Expr right) {   
  @Override
  long eval() { return left.eval() + right.eval(); }
}
record Subtract(Expr left, Expr right) {
  @Override
  long eval() { return left.eval() - right.eval(); }
}
record Multiply(Expr left, Expr right) {
  @Override
  long eval() { return left.eval() * right.eval(); }
}
record Divide(Expr left, Expr right) {
  @Override
  long eval() { return left.eval() / right.eval(); }
}

OCaml:

type expr = 
  | Value of int
  | Add of expr * expr
  | Subtract of expr * expr
  | Multiply of expr * expr
  | Divide of expr * expr

let rec eval = function 
  | Value value -> value
  | Add (left, right) -> (eval left) + (eval right)
  | Subtract (left, right) -> (eval left) - (eval right)
  | Multiply (left, right) -> (eval left) * (eval right)
  | Divide (left, right) -> (eval left) / (eval right)

....Java has so much more syntactical overhead than OCaml, and that's even with recent Java and being pretty aggressive about using boiler-plate reducing sugars like Records. And F# has even less, since it doesn't require you to use different operators for numerics or do as much manual casting between strings/numerics

[-] GiantRobotTRex@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 year ago

It makes more sense when you realize it's based on code.golf submissions. No one is going to create a class like that for a code golf problem. They're probably not going to create any classes (other than one just to hold the main function).

I'm pretty sure I can do the Fibonnaci one with less code than your simple class. Because these problems are simple enough they don't benefit from any OOP stuff so you avoid most of the syntactic overhead.

I am surprised it's not higher in the list since the overhead of setting up a main method is still quite significant compared to most languages. But other than that, these problems can be solved without running into any egregious examples of overhead.

[-] genoxidedev1@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Just gonna drop by to say that I love Crystal

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

How is it's current state for building windows binaries? As a game dev who wants to fiddle with doing "everything from scratch" at least once, Crystal always seemed extremely enticing, the syntax more so than Nim

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[-] colonial@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I'm surprised C is so low. I feel like I need to write 5x more code (compared to C++/Rust) to do the exact same thing.

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[-] philm@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago

Hmm interesting, I would've thought that Haskell would rank much higher

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[-] Papercrane@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago

What the heck is brainfuck?? Maybe a hot take but I wouldn't wanna program in that /s

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 18 points 1 year ago
[-] genoxidedev1@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

------[-->+++<]>.--------.-.----------.+.+++++++++++++.[-->+++++<]>+++.+[->+++<]>+.+..[--->+<]>+++.++[---->+<]>+.+[----->+<]>+.+++++++.-.++++++.

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[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

This is why I love Ruby: Nearly as concise as Python but never complains about whitespace or indentation.

[-] UlrikHD@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

I've never understood the complaint about forced indentation. What kind of monster doesn't use indentation for their code anyway?

If anything, it's nice that the language forces it on you so that you don't stumble on code written by one of those monsters.

[-] swordsmanluke@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago

For me at least, it's less about forcing indentation as much as limiting what I can do with visual indentation.

Sometimes, it's nice to group lines at a given indentation level for visual comprehension vs the needs of the interpreter.

And to be fair, I don't hate Python's indentation style. It's usually not a major problem in practice. It's just that without the ability to override it, I lose a tool for expressing intent.

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[-] parlaptie@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago

Everyone's comparing the placements of their favorite language and I'm just left wondering how GolfScript gets beaten by seven other languages. I take it out was created specifically to do well on code golf? Mission failed, I guess.

[-] kartonrealista@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Why would golfscript be more verbose than some others? Isn't it made for golfing?

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Rest in pieces golfcels it's pychad time

[-] shotgun_crab@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Would assembly be higher or lower than brainfuck?

[-] coloredgrayscale@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

Assembly would be lower. You have more complex / direct instructions in assembly. Brain fuck is pretty much just a pure turing machine, and has 8 instructions.

X86 has ~ 1000 + variants. Even ARM with a smaller instruction set has 232 instructions.

In brain fuck to set a number you'd have to count up (or down - underflow) to that number. In assembly you just set it.

Somewhere I've read that current assembly code with Makros should be similar to writing C.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Is Dart inherently verbose, or does it just seem that way because people are using it to make Flutter widgets and they're verbose? When you look at the Dart syntax it doesn't seem like it needs to be verbose, but Flutter code certainly can be.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

This is from codegolf competitions, so non-Flutter I'd assume.

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[-] starman@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm suprised by F# position

[-] ydieb@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Interesting that zig is so much lower than c in expressiveness. Isn't that a bit weird?

[-] gamma@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's interesting, the results here are way different than the Code Golf & Coding Challenges Stack Exchange. I would never expect Haskell to be that low. But after looking at code.golf, I realize it's because I/O on CG&CC is more relaxed. Most Haskell submissions are functions which return the solution.

Sidenote: I like the CG&CC method, it's semi-competitive, semi-cooperative.

  • all languages welcome
  • almost all users post "Try it Online"/"Attempt This Online" links
  • most users post explanations under their submissions
  • often people will post solutions beginning with "port of user1234's excellent Foolang answer" when there's a clever shortcut someone finds
  • or people will post their own solution with "here's a solution which doesn't use user1234's algorithm"
  • or people will add comments to answers with minor improvements

IMO It's geared towards what is the best part about code golf: teaching people about algorithm design and language design.

[-] Severed_Fate@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

How come kotlin isn't there

[-] yggdar@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

With my professional experience in COBOL, I can honestly say I'm not surprised at all!

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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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