On Sun, 1 Aug 2004, "Matt Harren" <matth@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> 
>   1) Our application runs 9% slower because comparison isn't as
> efficient.  When x == y, checking "x = y" takes time proportional to
> the size of the structure, instead of constant time.

I do not know what you are comparing but maybe a custom comparison
function would make things even faster?  As an example,

          min : 'a -> 'a -> 'a
and
          let min' x y = if (x:int) < y then x else y

have (very) different speed characteristics!

>   2) We've been cheating and using (=) on structures that may be cyclic.

Same: why don't you define the meaningful equality?  Sure, you do not
have the convenience of the name "=" but you can use "===", "=^=",
"=~=",...  This probably would also make your software easier to
understand (the "strange" comparison on cyclic structures would be
made explicit).

Regards,
ChriS

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