New language feature: array-types

[Ramin]

Well, in C/C++, and most any other imperative languages (as you probably 
know) is O(1) for both reading and updating arrays. Until Haskell can do 
this, I don't think Haskell is a viable option for operating system 
design, computer graphics, or embedded applications. Thats a shame 
because Haskell can do pretty much anything else, and much better/safer 
than imperative languages -- at least until we get CPU's specially 
designed to run Haskell code at the machine-level.

I was hoping that Haskell-prime would address this. I could be wrong but 
it really comes down to whether or not the Haskell code be optimized to 
use arrays in the same way that a C program would. And this optimization 
could be explicitly declared by the programmer if the language allowed 
for it, right?

Don Stewart wrote:
> lennart:
>   
>> As for array updating, there are many ways to improve the O(n) update.
>> You can use a tree representation and get O(log n) for all operations.
>> You can use the array single threaded in the ST monad and get all the
>> usual array operation complexities.
>>     
>
> Or use a history/transaction list to average out the copy cost, or use
> fusion to minimise the updates required. 
>
> Making pure arrays efficient is a lot of fun, but it's a library issue,
> not a language one, necessarily.
>
> -- Don
>