Fuzion • Fuzion Design • Lazy Evaluation of Arguments

Lazy Evaluation of Arguments

Lazy evaluation can provide improved performance and allow code that would otherwise not terminate or cause errors. Lazy evaluation can be achieved using a nullary function argument.

Lazy evaluation in other languages

Haskell

Lazy evaluation is the default for all function arguments.

Java

Java has built-in lazy evaluation for binary boolean operators && and ||. This permits code such as


if (a != null && a.toString().equals("a"))
  {
    System.out.prinltn("a is a");
  }

if (b == null || !b.toString().equals("b"))
  {
    System.out.prinltn("b is not b");
  }

This code would crash with a NullPointerException if the evaluation of the right hand side of the boolean operators would not be lazy.

Rust

Rust has a macro lazy! to create a memoized lazily evaluated value. Evaluation is explicit using *, see the following code taken from docs.rs:


fn expensive() -> i32 {
    println!("I am expensive to evaluate!"); 7
}

fn main() {
    let a = lazy!(expensive()); // Nothing is printed.

    // Thunks are just smart pointers!
    assert_eq!(*a, 7); // "I am expensive to evaluate!" is printed here

    let b = [*a, *a]; // Nothing is printed.
    assert_eq!(b, [7, 7]);
}

Apart from this, Rust seems to have no specific support for lazy evaluation of arguments, functions with lazy arguments need to either use function types or lazy_st::Thunk.

F#

A lazily evaluatable expression in Rust is declared using lazy (expr), evaluation is done via a call to Force on the expression. The type of a lazy expression created from an expression of type T is Lazy<T>.

Here is an example taken from microsoft.com:


let x = 10
let result = lazy (x + 10)
printfn "%d" (result.Force())

Some developers are unhappy about F#'s lazy evaluation not being transparent and not memoized.

C#/.NET

A clazz Lazy<T> provides lazy evaluation and result caching in conjunction with specifc thread safety modes.

Syntax alternatives for Fuzion

Let's play around with syntax alternatives using a feature and that implements boolean conjunction, a feature list that creates a list from a head and a lazy tail, and a lazy type_of function:

Approach Aspect	Explicit lambda	Implicit lambda with `lazy` keyword	Implicit lambda	lazy feature
Idea	Explicitly use function types, i.e., add `()->` at declaration and call, add `()` at use of lazy argument.	A new keyword `lazy` instructs the front end to produce a unary function type, arguments get wrapped automatically on a call and called when used.	Use explicit function types at declaration and use, but automatically wrap incompatible actual arguments in a unary function on use. This is a special case of partial application with no arguments applied and no arguments remaining.	Make `lazy` a feature of the base library that inherits from or wraps the unary function type. Add syntax sugar that automatically wraps arguments in an instance of `lazy` and automatically calls them when used.
Feature declaration	`and(a bool, b ()->bool) bool => if a b() else false list(T type, h T, t () -> list T) list T => ref : Cons T (list T) head => h tail => t() type_of(T type, _ ()->T) => T`	`and(a bool, lazy b bool) bool => if a b else false list(T type, h T, lazy t list T) list T => ref : Cons T (list T) head => h tail => t type_of(T type, lazy _ T) => T`	`and(a bool, b ()->bool) bool => if a b() else false list(T type, h T, t () -> list T) list T => ref : Cons T (list T) head => h tail => t() type_of(T type, _ ()->T) => T`	`and(a bool, b lazy bool) bool => if a b else false list(T type, h T, t lazy list T) list T => ref : Cons T (list T) head => h tail => t type_of(T type, _ lazy T) => T`
Feature call	`c := and d ()->e ones => list 1 ()->ones t := type_of ()->(3, 4.0) # tuple i32 f64`	`c := and d e ones => list 1 ones t := type_of (3, 4.0) # tuple i32 f64`	`c := and d e ones => list 1 ones t := type_of (3, 4.0) # tuple i32 f64`	`c := and d e ones => list 1 ones t := type_of (3, 4.0) # tuple i32 f64`
Comment	The developer is explicit at the feature declaration and at the call site.	For a call to `and` the second argument `e` gets wrapped in `()->(` and `)` automatically.	The caller of `and` would get `e` wrapped in a lambda automatically since the result of `e` is not compatible to `b`:	Maybe the most beautiful solution? Need to decide to either use a value type around a function `lazy(T type, f ()->T) is ...` or a `ref` type inheriting form `Function` as in `Lazy(T type) ref : Function T is ...`
Pros&Cons	🟡 explicit but cryptic at declaration `b ()->bool` ❌ verbose at use `b()` ❌ verbose at call `()->e` ✅ explicit at use `b()` ✅ explicit at call `()->e` ✅ no extra syntax sugar ✅ no extra keyword ❌ `type_of` cumbersome. ❌ memoization only if unary function type provides this (which is hard in case of effects)	✅ explicit at declaration `lazy b bool` ✅ concise at use `b` ✅ concise at call `e` 🟡 implicit at use 🟡 implicit at call ❌ extra syntax sugar on declaration, use and call ❌ addition keyword `lazy` ✅ `type_of` works as expected ❌ memoization only if unary function type provides this (which is hard in case of effects)	🟡 explicit but cryptic at declaration `b ()->bool` ✅ concise at use `b` ✅ concise at call `e` 🟡 implicit at use ❌ implicit black magic at call ✅ same syntax sugar as for partial application ✅ no extra keyword ❌ `type_of` does not work for nullary functions: `type_of ()->3` would be `i32` ❌ memoization only if unary function type provides this (which is hard in case of effects)	✅ explicit at declaration `b lazy bool` ✅ concise at use `b` ✅ concise at call `e` 🟡 implicit at use 🟡 implicit at call 🟡 extra syntax sugar on use and call ✅ no extra keyword 🟡 `type_of` applied to `lazy` value is the wrapped type: `x lazy i32 := 3; type_of x` would be `i32` ✅ `lazy` could implement memoization

last changed: 2024-06-28

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