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Text File  |  1992-11-12  |  2.1 KB  |  51 lines
  1. Newsgroups: comp.lang.functional
  2. Path: sparky!uunet!decwrl!purdue!yuma!rro
  3. From: rro@CS.ColoState.EDU (Rod Oldehoeft)
  4. Subject: Re: Is efficient backtracking feasible in functional languages?
  5. Originator: rro@CS.ColoState.EDU
  6. Sender: news@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU (News Account)
  7. Message-ID: <Nov12.234528.87342@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
  8. Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 23:45:28 GMT
  9. Reply-To: rro@cs.ColoState.EDU
  10. References: <TMB.92Nov12122350@arolla.idiap.ch> <1992Nov12.162725.25836@cs.yale.edu> <BxM80r.1Hu@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>
  11. Nntp-Posting-Host: debussy.cs.colostate.edu
  12. Organization: Colorado State University
  13. Keywords: lazy backtracking Gofer
  14. Lines: 35
  15.  
  16.  
  17. In article <BxM80r.1Hu@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>, kh@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Kevin Hammond) writes:
  18.  
  19. Stuff deleted.
  20.  
  21. |> 
  22. |> Most functional language implementations that I know in detail (strict
  23. |> or non-strict) have, or have had, significant space-leak problems.
  24.  
  25. In our SISAL implementation, finding a space leak was finding a bug,
  26. which got fixed, always.
  27.  
  28. |> 
  29. |> To reiterate the point, this is an *implementation* issue, NOT a
  30. |> language issue.  For what it's worth, the new Glasgow Haskell compiler
  31. |> has no problem with strangesucc 10000000.  It always "black-holes"
  32. |> entered closures, and should never retain dead values on the stack.
  33. |> 
  34.  
  35. Agreed that implementors, not language designers, cause these errors.
  36. However, an option that allows faster execution when the user knows
  37. not recovering storage is not going to matter shouldn't be classified
  38. as a space leak.  It's also stupid to recover space when leaving scope
  39. towards program termination.
  40.  
  41. -- 
  42. |--------------------------------------------------------------|
  43. | Rod Oldehoeft                    Email: rro@cs.colostate.edu |
  44. | Computer Science Department      Voice: 303/491-5792         |
  45. | Colorado State University        Fax:   303/491-6639         |
  46. | Fort Collins, CO  80523                                      |
  47. |--------------------------------------------------------------|
  48. | I pay the price, but do not count the cost.                  |
  49. |                            John Barth, "The Tidewater Tales" |
  50. |--------------------------------------------------------------|
  51.