question on caching
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg2700] question on caching
- From: loh at mtl.mit.edu (Vincent Kwok-Shiang Loh)
- Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 01:52:16 -0500
- Organization: MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories
Hi all, I saw a thread on caching and it led me to think about my code: I built a general tree structure using caching to implement different nodes on the tree: node[x, y] returns the contents of node(x, y) This seemed like a fast and easy way to build tree structures. However, I've been aware of memory constraints. Realistically, how much amount of caching can I do before I have to start worrying? my machine setup is: 486 NT 3.51 52Mb ram ( :-) ) ~196Mb swap device. I don't think I am hitting memory problems now, because my disk is not grinding to death, and my memory load indicator seems to be doing fine. Anyway, I would like to know how efficient in terms of storage and speed the cache is. Also, I had originally built a tree using a list structure. I was getting concerned with carrying a huge complicated list around. since mma works with expressions, I was afraid that my variable was being evaluated constantly and many duplicates of large, large trees were being created and destroyed when functions were called. I think that this is in fact not the case, but I'm not sure how mma does this. If anybody could fill me in on any of the issues, I would appreciate it. Vince