[Haskell-cafe] Re: evaluate vs seq

[apfelmus at quantentunnel.de]

Lennart Augustsson wrote:
> No, you were right the first time. :)  The denotational semantics is the
> important one.  Haskell can be executed by other means than graph
> reduction.  (That's why the report says a "non-strict" rather than
> "lazy" language.)  Peculiar language constructs may allow you to tell
> the difference, but then they are highly dubious (and like all dubious
> things, they should be in the IO monad :) ).

You suggest that (evaluate) or something else actually can tell me the
difference? That would be interesting.

And what alternatives (besides call by name without sharing) are there?
I always think lazy evaluation is space and time optimal.

Regards,
apfelmus