On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 23:11, Steve Haflich wrote:
>    From: Martin Elster <1103.org at martin>
>    
>    When I try to read a file into an array using ACL it is painfully
>    slow. The function I use is this:
> 
> Your algorithm is preposterously slow.  First of all, omitting the
> optional increment argument to vector-push-extend says you don't care
> whether your algorithm is O^1 or O^2.  The default in ACL6.2 is a mere
> 20, but that is appropriate only for code that rarely experiences
> overflows.  (The default has been changed in ACL 7.0 to the current
> length of the array which is probably what cmucl does, but still,
> depending on this kind of _unspecified_ performance behavior is
> unwise.  There are too many places in the definition of CL where
> performance is not specified, and moreover, it is not obvious.)

Ah, ok. Increasing the increment argument dramatically increases
performance. I should have read the documentation more carefully. 

Thanks for the tips and your quick response. 

Martin