Re: Why is there a space leak here?

David Bakin wrote:

I have been puzzling over this for nearly a full day (getting this reduced version from my own code which wasn't working).

and Alastair Reid replied:

Executive summary: David's program has an incredibly subtle space leak in it (or I'm being incredibly dumb).

I don't think you were being dumb. The space leak was easy enough to understand once explained, but I don't think it was obvious -- at any rate it was not obvious to me. I take this as another data point showing how lazy evaluation can cause space leaks that are difficult to debug. If experts like Alastair Reid have trouble understanding the operational behaviour of simplified examples like this one, how are ordinary programmers to cope with complicated programs? Is lazy functional programming too difficult for ordinary mortals? -- Fergus Henderson | "I have always known that the pursuit | of excellence is a lethal habit" WWW: http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.