[Haskell-cafe] runStateT execution times measurement baffling

[thomas burt]

Sorry, thought I had replied to this with my result!

I added `seq` and $! inside `stuffToDo` to ensure that there weren't any
thunks left around after it was called.

The measured times were only a few hundredths of a second apart after that.

So, apparently even with a strict StateT, partially evaluated references can
easily be left around all the way until the call to runStateT returns. In
this case my state is a record, if that makes any difference. It's not what
I expected... I can see why my example is too small to show why it behaved
this way though.

I thought pattern matching (in Haskell98) was itself strict, so I don't see
what the difference between a lazy and strict stateT is, except perhaps in
cases that the value of runStateT is bound via a different mechanism than
pattern matching.

On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 6:13 AM, Daniel Fischer <
daniel.is.fischer at googlemail.com> wrote:

> On Saturday 22 October 2011, 13:55:36, Bas van Dijk wrote:
> > On 20 October 2011 22:16, thomas burt <thedwards at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Perhaps I will try and force `stuffToDo` not to leave any partially
> > > evaluated thunks behind.... and compare the cost then.
> >
> > What happens when you switch to a strict StateT?
>
> He already uses the strict StateT:
>
> > By the way I'm using ghc-6.10.4 and Control.Monad.Trans.State.Strict.
>
> We need to see more of the code to find out what's going on.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/attachments/20111022/4f845718/attachment.htm>