From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id UAA15096; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:46:59 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA22945 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:46:57 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ptb-relay03.plus.net (ptb-relay03.plus.net [212.159.14.214]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id i8UIkvON006683 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:46:57 +0200 Received: from [80.229.56.224] (helo=chetara) by ptb-relay03.plus.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1CD5x4-000Mjv-Gf for caml-list@inria.fr; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:46:50 +0000 From: Jon Harrop To: Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Formal Methods Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:42:41 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.2 References: <003901c4a713$ea0e4f00$1b447182@cas.mcmaster.ca> In-Reply-To: <003901c4a713$ea0e4f00$1b447182@cas.mcmaster.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200409301942.41324.jon@jdh30.plus.com> X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 415C54A1.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 2004:99 jacques:01 analogy:01 ocaml's:01 inference:01 api:01 generic:01 hofs:01 mli:01 compilers:01 compile:02 compile:02 wrote:03 wrote:03 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk 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. ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners