[Haskell-cafe] Re: Chameneos

[Chris Kuklewicz]

Simon Marlow wrote:
> I'm not keen on using explicit unboxed values in these benchmarks, since
> it looks so ugly.  In most cases you can convince GHC to do the unboxing
> for you, and I'm pretty sure it should be the case here too.  Just use
> ordinary Ints.

The syntax is not so pleasing, but it is consistant.

> It's interesting you're getting some benefit from using integers instead
> of enumerations.  We've known for a while that enumerations in GHC
> aren't optimised as well as they could be. 

So what I am seeing was well known.

> So, at least for now, this
> is a useful trick: instead of
> 
>   data T = A | B | C
> 
> write
> 
>   newtype T = T Int
> 
>   a = T 1
>   b = T 2
>   c = T 3
> 
> and then GHC will be able to unbox T in a constructor field (ie. {-#
> UNPACK #-} !T will work), and it will also be able to unbox T in a
> strict argument position.

I have never used UNPACK or -funbox-strict-fields before. I tried
several variations -- all slower.

I never declare "data Foo = Foo Color" so "Foo {-# UNPACK #-} !Color" is
not possible right now.  I do make a tuple of (Color,MVar Color) and put
this into an MVar.  Replacing this with data ID = ID {-# UNPACK #-}
!Color !(MVar Color) has made things a bit worse.

> 
> Of course you do lose the ability to do pattern matching.

Which may cause other speed issues.  But I set "complement _ _ = red" to
remove any performance hit there.


> 
> Cheers,
>     Simon
> 

So I cannot seem to benefit form UNPACK or -funbox-strict-fields at the
moment.

-- 
Chris