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From: Jon Harrop <jon@jdh30.plus.com>
To: <caml-list@inria.fr>
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Formal Methods
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:42:41 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <200409301942.41324.jon@jdh30.plus.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <003901c4a713$ea0e4f00$1b447182@cas.mcmaster.ca>

On Thursday 30 September 2004 18:35, Jacques Carette wrote:
> I also see an analogy with type systems such as Ocaml's: in theory, type
> inference is exponential, while in practice it is very fast.

I'd contest the "very fast".

When writing an API for my vector graphics engine, I wrote a lot of generic 
HOFs. The time taken to compile increased by a factor of ten. This prompted 
me to split my sources into separate compilation units to speed partial 
recompilations.

I believe the slow compile times are due to the complicated types involved 
(often half a page in the .mli) although the functions themselves are often 
very simple. So I think the time taken for compilers to deal with types can 
be very significant and can influence programming. So I don't think type 
handling is not always "very fast" in practice.

Cheers,
Jon.

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  reply	other threads:[~2004-09-30 18:46 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2004-09-30 15:51 David McClain
2004-09-30 17:35 ` Jacques Carette
2004-09-30 18:42   ` Jon Harrop [this message]
2004-10-01  8:24   ` Thomas Fischbacher
2004-10-01  9:01     ` Achim Blumensath
2004-09-30 17:54 ` [Off-topic] " David MENTRE
2004-10-01  7:36 ` Jean-Christophe Filliatre
2004-10-01  7:51   ` Tom
2004-10-01  9:04   ` Martin Berger
2004-10-01  8:30 ` Hendrik Tews
2004-10-01  9:18   ` Martin Berger
2004-09-30 17:19 Harrison, John R

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