[racket] How fast is zero? was: Find nth term of a List

What is the difference in correctness between "(= x 0)" vs. "(zero? x)"?

Fast is relevant to some questions (solutions) I have -- terminating tight
loops etc. And given a choice of (eq? 0 x), (= 0 x) and (zero? x), which
would, and which should take the shortest time to perform 10^12 times?

Maybe I'm thinking a bit too much like a C programmer -- (!x)... works for
me as a test in so many ways; that I tend to want to use something like it
when I'm writing in other languages. (Where I should be using zero? false?
and/or null?).

Tim

On 27/09/12 16:50, Matthias Felleisen wrote:
> Fast is so irrelevant for this question.
>
> Correct is what really matters.
>
>
>
> On Sep 27, 2012, at 11:45 AM, Tim Brown wrote:
>
>> On 26/09/12 15:31, Marco Morazan wrote:
>>> 1. Is eq? the most natural way to test the equality of numbers? (minor quibble)
>>
>> I was wondering this, myself, earlier, but is zero? the fastest way to
>> test for zero-ness?
>>
>> Tim

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