>>>>> "Xavier" == Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr> writes:

Xavier> Polymorphism and higher-order functions don't mix well with
Xavier> high performance. If you need Fortran-like performance, there
Xavier> are cases where you must write Fortran-style code.

I know that I'm asking too much, but wouldn't it be nice it the
compiler did it for me?   In the example at hand,

  let f2 = map (function (p,p') -> (p*.p'))

the compiler could inline the multiplication automagically, iff it
still had access to the definition of the map function.

A trivial example is code like the following:

  let exponentiate make_unit eps norm plus minus times scale x =
    let u = make_unit x in
    let rec sumup s n x1 xn =
      if norm (xn) <= eps *. norm (minus s u) then
	s
      else
	sumup (plus s xn) (n +. 1.0) x1 (scale (1.0 /. n) (times x1 xn))
    in
      (* usually, times x u == x, but u can be a projector which
	 will speed up things for special cases.  *)
      sumup u 2.0 x (times x u)
  
  let exp_ =
    exponentiate (fun _ -> 1.0) 1e-14 abs_float ( +. ) ( -. ) ( *. ) ( *. )
  
  let exp_matrix =
    exponentiate unit_like 1e-14 infinity_norm add subtract multiply scale_matrix

Here partial application really shines and it could shine even
brighter if there was no speed penalty ...

Cheers,
-Thorsten

-- 
Thorsten Ohl, Physics Department, TH Darmstadt --- PGP: AF 38 FF CE 03 8A 2E A7
http://crunch.ikp.physik.th-darmstadt.de/~ohl/ -------- 8F 2A C1 86 8C 06 32 6B