Hi, On Mon, 29 Jul 2002, Scott J. wrote:
Can one write withthe Haskell compliler faster code than in the examples of http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/ where GHC (old Haskell 98?) seems to be much slower than Ocaml or Mlton both strict functional languages. Can one expect any improvements in speed in the future?
There have been speed improvements in the past. I recommend reading Urban Boquists thesis where he describes a whole program Haskell compiler which generates pretty fast code. The thesis is very readable and I recommend it heartily to everyone with just the slightest interest in compiling lazy languages. It can be found here: http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~boquist/ While we're on the subject there are a few things that I need to let out. I think the reason why Haskell compilers aren't generating any faster code is that there is a lack of competition among different compilers. And I think that the lack of competition depends on that noone wants to write a front-end to Haskell. It's simply too complicated and too much boring work before one comes down to the interesting details. I know there is work on creating standardised front-ends and this is a step in the right direction. But the current state of affairs is the price we've had to pay to have such a feature-rich language. All the best, /Josef