[Haskell-cafe] Re: OCaml list sees abysmal Language Shootout results

[Ketil Malde]

Peter Simons <simons at cryp.to> writes:

> The problem is not Haskell, nor is it the implementation.
> The problem is that beginners, including yours truly, tend
> to write awfully inefficient code once you give them a
> "String" and tell them: Here, that's the contents of your
> file. 

And it's just so *convenient* to use it.

> Nonetheless, the problem is the inefficient code, not the
> language.

But even a simple, single-pass word-counting using the standard IO is
slow, it would be really nice to write this in a straightforward way
and still get decent performance.

As somebody just said, you get to chose between speed and
simplicity/clarity of code.  I would like both.

Couldn't readFile et al. provide the standard interface, but use
hGetBuf tricks (e.g. from your 'wc' entry) behind the curtains?

-kzm
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants