Re: [Caml-list] looping recursion

[briand@aracnet.com]

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian Hurt <bhurt@spnz.org> writes:

  Brian> Take a look at ExtLib:
  Brian> http://sourceforge.net/projects/ocaml-lib/

thanks for the link.

  Brian> This contains a drop-in compatible replacement to the List
  Brian> library, which includes a List.map function that doesn't blow
  Brian> up.

  Brian> If your list is that long, I'd actually recommend doing one
  Brian> of two things:

it really is.
although I'd actually like it to be an array.
it's the classic situation, read whole file - iterate on elements.
easy to do in a list since I don't need to know the size.

some minor tweaks and I can include the size in a data file and just
fill an array directly.

however, my larger point is the fact that the "standard" map blows up
like that.  as a long time scheme user I just find that plain weird.
Now Everybody else seems to think I'm weird because I think that's
weird ;-)

  Brian> Very long lists are a sign that you're using the wrong data
  Brian> structure.

I'm not sure I understand that.  I have 10^6 data points to work on.
I'm thinking a list or an array is the right data structure.  Although
an array is more right.  I mean if you are not worried about
efficiency then incremental transformation by map'ing is a very
elegant and clean way to go about doing that sort of work.

Part of the problem is that powerful computers make for lazy
programmers :-) It's just so easy to read the 10^6 elements into a
list and then just keep map'ing them to the final value when it only
takes seconds to do :-) If it took 2 minutes I'd be more inclined to
think about the problem.

Brian

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