Re: [Haskell-beginners] maximum: stack overflow?

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 6:05 AM, Roland Zumkeller wrote:

Hi Alex,

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Alexander Dunlap wrote:

...

Isn't maximum always (semantically) strict anyway? I.e.

maximum [1,2,undefined] = undefined

If max is (semantically) strict, then so is maximum. On the other hand, both may be non-strict:

The case where max is not strict seldom happen and anyway in those cases foldr1 would be more appropriate than foldl1 (which won't allow fast termination, though a non-strict max may save you from stack overflow)... Note that with -O or -O2 you may have a specialization of maximum to foldl1' if you're working on Int or Integer or ... I guess the report really dropped the ball on this one with its failure to settle on either lazyness or strictness. -- Jedaï