Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] A good structure for counting things (?)

[Bardur A. <sp...@sc...>]

Richard Jones wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 04:46:03PM +0100, Amit Dubey wrote:
>> I actually have similar code, but I tend to use it over floats more than
>> ints. Maybe this calls for a functor-based design?
> 
> I think it's a fine idea.  Are there performance implications?  For
> reasons which I can't really fathom, functors don't seem to be fully
> "inlined" when they are created, presumably resulting in extra
> overhead.
> 

Yup, I believe OCaml currently uses dynamic dispatch for functors. I
don't think there are any theoretical reasons that this necessarily has
to be the case.

> What do other people think about the general concept?

+1, I like it and I think it should be added to ExtLib. I've used
similar code a number of times, but have used the code reuse technique
known as Copy and Paste, just because I couldn't be bothered to package
something up.

Even though it may be a tad slower (no inlining), it does allow you to
create Counters which count objects of an identical type *without* being
"compatible". This allows a bit more type safety if you want it.

Finally, I don't like the name Counter; it's a bit too generic for my
tastes. Maybe call it Histogram instead?

Cheers,

-- 
Bardur Arantsson
<bar...@TH...>

"Mr. T to pity fool."
                                          http://www.theonion.com