Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ut-sally!utah-cs!defun.utah.edu!shebs
From: shebs%defun.utah.edu.uucp@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: Strings
Message-ID: <5376@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: 27 Mar 88 00:22:18 GMT
References: <512@ecrcvax.UUCP> <768@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <5348@utah-cs.UUCP> <488@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk> <822@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
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Reply-To: shebs%defun.utah.edu.UUCP@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Organization: PASS Research Group
Lines: 16
Keywords: bignums, vectors, lists

A minor point: I don't think I claimed that "`Lisp' didn't use lists for
bignums any more"; if I did, it was a boner.  For almost any possible design
choice, you can find one or more systems in the past that made that choice.
It is true that lists for bignums are unusual nowadays, but nobody (so far as
I know) has made a scientific study as to whether lists are better/worse than
vectors for representing bignums.  Anybody need a masters thesis?

>Did you make sure that all the relevant code was paged in before
>measuring the performance of (fact 1000)?

Ah yes, one of the nasty little details that a truly meaningful study
would have to take into account.  Still, I would expect all the relevant
code to get paged in after the first few bignums...

							stan shebs
							shebs@cs.utah.edu