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Right, using a mutable structure is the easy way. But is there a way that would maintain the advantages of immutability? (eg memory-efficient and easy undo)
by kylebrown 12y ago
Right, using a mutable structure is the easy way. But is there a way that would maintain the advantages of immutability? (eg memory-efficient and easy undo)
- taeric 12y agoAre those truly the advantages of immutability? Easy undo can be achieved just as easily by reversing operations, in many cases. No need to keep two copies of a potentially large structure when you could just keep the diff and reverse apply it. Oddly, I think typically you would do both. Keep a few large snapshots with small diffs between stages. That is digressing, though. As for memory-efficiency... not sure how keeping many potentially large copies is more efficient than just modifying a single copy. Now, I can agree that in many cases it is nice that it prevents you from worrying about race conditions across threads. Though, I'm also not convinced that immutable things are any better than traditional locking strategies. Is that race truly won?
- dbaupp 12y agoOne doesn't need to keep large copies, since immutability allows common substructures to be shared. (That said, it still seems rather unlikely that an immutable implementation will use less memory.)
- Rapzid 12y agoThat's not a property of immutability. That's a property of certain specialized data structures, see "Purely Functional Data Structures" for a start, implemented in clojure.
- chowells 12y agoWell, it's a property of basically everything except arrays. So it's more than just "certain specialized data structures".
- taeric 12y agoTo be fair, many folks learn immutable data structures with the so called "persistent" data structures. Which are cool, to be sure. They are far from new, however. So, I'll be a little surprised if it turns out they are a panacea.