[Haskell-cafe] Cost of seq (sorry about the old subject)

On 11/2/06, Bulat Ziganshin wrote:

Hello Chad,

Thursday, November 2, 2006, 8:49:17 PM, you [Chad] wrote:

...

Would it be possible for the type system to distinguish at compile time whether something would need to be evaluated, and optimize away redundant `seq`s? Maybe this is what the strictness analyzer does already.

afaik, seq cost is zero (except for evaluating expressions, of course)

So if x has already been evaluated, does x `seq` y evaluate just as quickly as y alone, or does it require extra cycles to make sure x has been evaluated? -- Chad Scherrer "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" -- Groucho Marx