Persistent List destruction size limit

[ghita]

Hy,

The list implementation is simple/nice but it imposes a limit on number of stored elements because of "additional effect" of recursive destruction. A garbage collector would be very nice indeed, without it I don't know if using a "production persistent List" is really possible.

[BartoszMilewski]

Either garbage collection, or tail recursion optimization would fix the problem. But there are many problems in which the length of the list is bounded -- as in the eight queen problem. Also, there are alternatives to lists -- tree-like structures.

[stoeckley]

Does this issue also extend to other data structures besides lists in this library?

[BartoszMilewski]

This library should be treated as a proof of concept. I was worried more about correctness and ease of use (especially in backtracking algorithms) than about performance.

It also points out at inherent shortcomings of C++. Contrary to popular belief, C++ is not an optimal implementation language for a whole slew of very useful data structures and algorithms.