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Internet Explorer 9 Caught Cheating In SunSpider
dkd903 writes "A Mozilla engineer has uncovered something embarrassing for Microsoft – Internet Explorer is cheating in the SunSpider Benchmark. The SunSpider, although developed by Apple, has nowadays become a very popular choice of benchmark for the JavaScript engines of browsers."
This is the nature of benchmarks... whenever people start caring about them enough, software/hardware designers optimize for the benchmark.
Next we're going to be shocked that 8th grade history students try to memorize the material they think will be on their test rather than seeking a deep and insightful mastery of the subject and its modern societal implications.
what can be attributed to stupidity.
1) Microsoft cheated by optimizing Internet Explorer 9 solely to ace the SunSpider Bechmark. To me, this seems like the best explanation.
2)Microsoft engineers working on Internet Explorer 9 could have been using the SunSpider Benchmark and unintentionally over-optimized the JavaScript engine for the SunSpider Benchmark. This seems very unlikely to me.
I see no reason why explanation number one is more likely than explanation number two.
Next we're going to be shocked that 8th grade history students try to memorize the material they think will be on their test rather than seeking a deep and insightful mastery of the subject and its modern societal implications.
Some things to consider: 1) I'm not doing business with the 8th grader. Nor am I relying on his understanding and memorization of history to run Javascript that I write for clients. 2) You are giving Microsoft a pass by building an analogy between their javascript engine and an 8th grade history student.
Just something to consider when you say we shouldn't be shocked by this.
My work here is dung.
Everything in italics is unsupported opinion by the author, yet is treated as fact in the summary and title by CmdrTaco and Slashdot. Perhaps if Slashdot would stick to actual news sites (you know NEWS for nerds and all that), this would be a balanced report with a good amount of information. Instead, it is just another Slashdot supported hit piece against MicroSoft.
Optimisations done purely for use only on a benchmark to achieve far better results than normal is the exact definition of cheating. Benchmarks are meant to test the browser with some form of real performance measure and not how good the programmers are at making the browser pass that one test. If the thing is getting thrown off by some very simple instructions to the tune of 20 times longer then it is seriously broken. Optimization or not.
It is like when ATI/Nvidia made their drivers do some funky shit on the benchmarks to make their products seem way better; This was also called cheating at the time.
Socially liberal does not mean "spend money".
Any other definition necessarily requires taking my money and giving it to someone else.
Ah, the "anti-tax" argument. I'm happy with taxes. Honestly. Do I wish they were lower - of course. Do I think that we spend money on stupid things? Yep.
Put taxes are still cheaper than having my own private doctor and hospital, my own roads, my own water towers and power generation, my own private library, swimming pool, and so on. Governments should do these things, because it's cheaper for everyone to pitch in.
Why don't you try reading it before you make that claim? The article is a few simple benchmark results and mild speculation as to what caused them. The summary may be inflammatory, the article goes out of its way not to be.
1) Microsoft beats everyone else by a factor of 10.
2) Making any of a number of effectively cosmetic changes to the function results in Microsoft taking twice as long as everyone else.
3) Making the inner loop 10x longer makes everyone else take 10x longer, except MS, who takes 180x longer.
Sorry, but if that counts as an optimization "bug", I have a bridge to sell you.