Now consider how you could use the varying performance on different tasks, and the varying performance on the same task of programs written in the same programming language, as examples (as a resource) for exploring (and showing to others) in what ways you think that is or isn't useful information.

If we just consider those "Which programming language is the fastest?" pages, then I think - simply getting someone to look away from a single number ranking (the median) and notice that for some language implementations the performance range is relatively small but for others the range is enormous - is useful.

> I'd also question exactly how useful reading toy benchmark solution code is to real problems.

Someone's told me that n-body pretty much is what they get paid to work on. Someone's told me that k-nucleotide and reverse-complement are pretty much is what they get paid to work on. The question as usual is who's "real" problems?

> wouldn't I be better off looking for samples of readable code that solve problems related to my specific problem domain?

Perhaps - and yet for some people what they see in those tiny tiny programs will be enough for a personal opinion about whether X is "the most human-readable".