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> The code guidelines in their benchmarks represent real programming practices in those languages. They promote "idiomatic" code because it is meant to represent the typical quality of code in the real world.

This could not be further from my observations when I tried contributing. These results are neither controlled nor the result of idiomatic programs.

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I'm talking about stuff like putting your code in classes, initializing with constructors, or using your language's standard library instead of writing your own stuff.

Perhaps idiomatic was the wrong word. I mean that the code isn't supposed to be fighting the language.

What were your observations when you were contributing? Which problems were you working on? Any chance you still have the code?

> I mean that the code isn't supposed to be fighting the language.

That's the issue: those programs that did best were those that fought the language the most, and those that pushed the closest to the edge of the rules. You can't, in general, look at two programs and assume they approach the problem the same way.

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