"Dan Piponi"
My wasn't intended to represent the problem that I'm trying to solve, but the approach I want to take. The problems that I do want to solve don't lend themselves to this kind of approach.
My real situation is that I want to write code that has both a high-level component and a low-level number-crunching component that works on large dense and sparse arrays. Idiomatic Haskell is great for the high-level component. But the question is whether or not its worth trying to write the low-level code in Haskell or whether I should just write that code in C and use the FFI.
I've written a bit number-crunching code in haskell. My experience is that usually the haskell code runs about 2 to 5 times slower -- It depends on whether I use the best optimisation scheme or not -- I do not know if I am doing the correct thing most of the time, since there is not much literature on-line about numerical computing in haskell, or in FP in general. There is one in ocaml, though.
There are still advantages to using Haskell even if the code is highly unidiomatic: you have the freedom of throwing in higher order functions from time to time in the low-level code, and writing mixed-language code is a pain. -- Dan
I fully agree. Xiao-Yong -- c/* __o/* <\ * (__ */\ <