On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Daniel Fischer
Am Dienstag 19 Januar 2010 22:34:41 schrieb Joe Van Dyk:
Thanks for the response. I was getting confused -- I'm used to thinking about a String as being its own type, instead of being an array of chars.
Lists are NOT arrays.
If it was not just loose language on your side, learn the distinction. List indexing (list !! k) is O(min k (length list)), array indexing is O(1). An array knows its size (resp. it can easily be calculated from the known bounds), a list does not. length list is O(length list).
If you're not aware of the differences, sooner rather than later, you'll get bitten by a gigantic performance bug.
Whoops, yes, I know that -- I'm just used to languages where it's not as big a deal. :D Joe