Re: [Caml-list] The Implicit Accumulator: a design pattern using optional arguments

[Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>]

On Thursday 28 June 2007 14:33:15 Thomas Fischbacher wrote:
> Jon Harrop wrote:
> >>You are still evading the issue: you nevertheless pass multiple arguments
> >> to a continuation, rather than consing a return value.
> >
> > Continuations and consing have nothing to do with this.
>
> Continuations and consing was what the discussion was about
> before you changed the subject.

I am more than happy to talk about continuations and consing but you need to 
post code that uses continuations or conses before anyone can help.

On Thursday 28 June 2007 12:18:44 Thomas Fischbacher wrote:
> > > Pattern matching requires constructors, which cons.
> ...
> You are evading the question.

You didn't ask a question. You made an incorrect statement: "Pattern matching 
requires constructors, which cons".

In the context of avoiding allocation, that is a critical misunderstanding as 
there was no allocation to avoid.

> How do you return two arguments from a function without constructing a
> 2-tuple (which is a consing operation). 

You can rewrite:

  let f() = 3, 4

  let g() =
    let x, y = f() in
    x + y

in CPS as:

  let f k = k 3 4

  let g = f ( + )

Performance is within 1%.

> A continuation call to a higher order function is one way to get
> something similar to MULTIPLE-VALUE-*.

Not really. Lisp's MULTIPLE-VALUE-* is used to avoid Lisp's heinously slow 
allocator. OCaml opted for a fast allocator and no MULTIPLE-VALUE-*.

> But often, this is a hack. 

Using CPS to avoid inefficiencies that don't exist is certainly a bad idea.

> According to your usually-screwed-up metrics...

Time taken?

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
The OCaml Journal
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_journal/?e