I'm working through some beginner-level "keyboard problems" I found at users.csc.calpoly.edu. One problem is the Saddle Points problem: quote: -------- Write a program to search for the "saddle points" in a 5 by 5 array of integers. A saddle point is a cell whose value is greater than or equal to any in its row, and less than or equal to any in its column. There may be more than one saddle point in the array. Print out the coordinates of any saddle points your program finds. Print out "No saddle points" if there are none. -------- Let's say I use a simple list grid like so: code: -------- array = Grid 5 [ [1,5,3,6,4] , [8,2,6,3,8] , [3,8,7,2,9] , [0,3,7,1,2] , [7,2,7,4,5] ] data Grid = Grid Int [[Int]] -------- And let's say I take a brute force approach, moving through each cell, checking to see if it is the greatest in its row and the least in its column. And say I have functions like so for getting rows and columns: code: -------- row (Grid s l) n = if (n >= s) then [] else l !! n col g@(Grid s l) n = if (n >= s) then [] else col_ g n 0 where col_ (Grid s l) n i = if (i >= s) then [] else (head l !! n) : col_ (Grid s (tail l)) n (i + 1) -------- My question: With the way Haskell works (thunks, lazy evaluation, and all that mystery), is it actually worth the trouble of /precalculating/ the maximum row values and minimum column values, to compare cell values against? Or will, for example, something like (smallest_list_value (col array 1)) definitely only evaluate once? -- frigidcode.com