[racket] A question about code-style (and memory usage)

Rodolfo Carvalho wrote at 07/24/2011 12:25 AM:
> For me solution 1 is compact, however it allocates the list without 
> need (which gives out of memory error for large N). Solution 2 is more 
> memory efficient, but more verbose.

I think that solution 2 is on the path to being relatively better, due 
to space efficiency, as you said.  Solution 1 is the kind of thing you 
might do if you're teaching concepts like "apply" or if you're more 
experienced with conventional mathematics than programming, but that you 
probably wouldn't do in a reusable library.

Note that "compose" is a procedure, so you don't want to be calling it 
on each iteration.

You still need a "number->english-letter-count" procedure.

Were I implementing this Project Euler solution for a reusable library, 
I would probably: (1) adapt "number->english" from 
"http://www.neilvandyke.org/numspell-scheme/" to use "and" and no 
punctuation; (2) use "string-length" and that new 
"number->problem-english" procedure to have a slow initial 
implementation for the problem solution; (3) adapt 
"number->problem-english" to be "number->problem-english-letter-count" 
without doing the string ports or other string allocation; (4) test the 
two implementations against each other; (5) investigate a potential 
third solution, looking at the algorithm and number patterns, to see 
whether I can make the the entire program or just the letter-counting 
procedure be constant-time.

Were I doing this solution for homework or to post on the Project Euler 
site, in step #1 above, I would write a new "number->problem-english" 
procedure from scratch, rather than adapt the one from the PLaneT package.

After all the inner-loop code has been optimized, if you wanted to shave 
a couple more instructions off the iteration over 1..1000, you could try 
named-"let" and counting down (so that your test for loop exit is 
"zero?"), and see whether that's any faster.  That's how I'd write it 
normally, as a matter of personal style, but I'm not certain that'd be 
faster in current version of Racket.  For a reusable library, you 
probably wouldn't care about any difference, but you might care if 
you're trying to win questionable Internet contests about whose language 
could beat up who else's language.

-- 
http://www.neilvandyke.org/