On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 11:36:20 -0400 (EDT) Mathieu Bouchard matju@artengine.ca wrote:
« Standard compsci » problems exclude a lot of new things for pedagogical reasons, to stay within the level of difficulty of first-year programming students and middle-year algorithmics students. There isn't a reason to stay within that problem set when the goal is to compare languages for daily use in potentially big practical projects.
Standard problems also make good, familiar points of comparison.
Maybe just time and space play a part. As a writer my own experience is that no matter your good intentions to be complete, one must draw a line (and if you don't the publisher will).
Sadly it's the fringe cases, and the esoterica that is often most interesting.
a.