I would also recommend the following book, which, in Chapter 3, discusses graph reduction, closures, and pointers: Fethi Rabhi, and Guy Lapalme. Algorithms: a functional programming approach; Second Edition. Addison-Wesley, 1999. Another useful book, but probably not for the beginner, is Chris Okasaki. Purely Functional Data Structures. Cambridge University Press, 1998, 1999. Best Regards, Richard E. Adams Softmatrix, Inc. Roseville, CA Email: richard_adams@non.hp.com -----Original Message----- From: Bryan Hayes (Hayes Technologies) [mailto:bryan.hayes@hayestechnologies.com] Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 7:30 AM To: haskell-cafe@haskell.org Subject: Pointers in Haskell?? I am totally new to Haskell, so maybe this is a stupid question. Various languages have pointers (or references), for good reason. Haskell can at least partly do without them (they are only existing internally somehow). My question is: Does Haskell principally not need pointers (i.e. in case of 2 data structures needing to reference an other very large data structure) or is this a design flaw or have a overlooked something? -------------------------------------------------- HAYES TECHNOLOGIES Software Speed Optimization Bryan Hayes Managing Director Mannheimer Str. 8 D-67098 Bad Dürkheim Deutschland / Germany Tel. +49 / (0)6322 / 94 950 - 68 Fax +49 / (0)6322 / 94 950 - 69 Mobile Tel. +49 / (0)163 / 6111867 E-Mail: mailto:bryan.hayes@hayestechnologies.com Web-Site: http://www.hayestechnologies.com _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe