Algorithmic lists

[Bjorn Gustavsson]

Thomas Arts <thomas@REDACTED> writes:

> I am horrified by the idea to find the AXD 301 software full with 
> cons cells, just in order to save those few bytes. In particular since
> in these lazy lists, the elements have a very short lifetime (Ulf wants
> to generate a side-effect and throw the value away), it would only
> save you one word. If efficiency turns outto be so much an issue, than 
> adding a new type to Erlang (similar to cons, but with different notiation,
> would be preferable).

We don't have any free tags to add a new cons-like type. A new type would
need a header word indicating the type and size, and would therefore not
be smaller than a tuple.

We already use non-normalised lists in Erlang and OTP. The list_to_binary/1
BIF and ports accept binaries in list tails.

> 
> 
> /Thomas
> 

/Björn
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