This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 77 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 77 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.
Thomas Bushnell BSG scripsit: > > Thomas Bushnell BSG scripsit: > > > >> > Can you live with 2^24? > >> > >> No. Have you heard of sparse arrays? They need indices too. > > > > Sparse arrays are not a fundamental R[56]RS type like strings and vectors. > > The question is whether these native types need to be Really Really Big. > > Huh? Sparse arrays are an *implementation* not a datatype. Granted, Scheme vectors could be implemented as sparse arrays (and Scheme strings as cords). For that matter, both could be implemented as lists, given a magic first cell that makes them disjoint from Scheme lists. And for that mattter, Scheme lists could be implemented as machine-level vectors, provided you are willing to live with all the behind-the-scenes copying that would be required. Numbers could be Church numerals, and so on. But if Scheme vectors don't have O(1) performance (actually O(log k) on modern hardware) in a given implementation, users are likely to vote with their feet. -- A rabbi whose congregation doesn't want John Cowan to drive him out of town isn't a rabbi, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan and a rabbi who lets them do it jcowan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx isn't a man. --Jewish saying http://www.reutershealth.com