Real Sequence Related Performance questions

Thank you John for your quick response.

I have few other questions:

- What is the fastest way to apply a function on all
the elements on a sequence of reals ? Also, what data
type is most suitable for this kind of operation ?
vector, array, list? Is it realistic to expect a
performance close to that of the C language in this
aspect? 

- What is the difference in terms of internal storage
for a list,vector and an array of reals i.e are the
elements stored contiguously in memory? 
     * Are elements of list, array, vector stored
internally as their corresponding native C data types
i.e int, char and double? 
     * What is the performance difference when working
with long sequences between these data types (i.e.
vector, array and list)? 
     * I have read in the documentation that vector is
immutable and array is mutable ... other then this
what other differences exist? 

- I am also confused about whether smlnj generates
byte code or native code? It seems like python on the
other hand generates bytecode, which in turn is
executed by its interpreter. Is it the same case with
SML? I have read in some places that SMLNJ produces
native code and in some places that it is an
interpreted language. If it produces native code,
shouldn't its performance be closer to that of C? 

Regards

Vaishali 


       
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