Programming puzzles: processing lists!

[DavidM]

A quick test shows that the performance degradation is significant when comparing reals and integers for equality. A worst-case situation for LEQ checking 1000 list elements went from 0.69 seconds to 3.14. A similar test for LRPCT went from 0.66 seconds to 3.07. I may be able to speed that up by pre-checking types to see if the more permissive equality check is even needed. The additional tests may offset the advantage, though.

I could do two versions of the affected commands, and I could also create a command to convert any integers in a list to reals. That would allow pre-processing the initial list to a consistent (and faster) domain to begin with, so subsequent operations could all use the simpler equality test. Converting 1000 integers to reals takes about 5 seconds. Not insignificant, but it could still be worth it if it sets up the use of the optimized commands later.

I realize that this set of commands is a bit more application-specific than something like GoferLists. But they may still be of some use.