Re: RFC 225 (v1) Data: Superpositions

Perl6 RFC Librarian (aka Damian Conway) wrote:
> This RFC (seriously) proposes Perl 6 provide C<any> and C<all> operators,
> and, thereby, conjunctive and disjunctive superpositional types.
>
Great to see this RFC'd--this will makes lots of data crunching code _way_
easier.

Now, I haven't quite finished reading all the references yet ;-) but I'm
wondering about the efficiency of of any() and all(). I've heard it said
that they work in constant time, but I assume that would only be if they are
implemented on a quantum computer (which are currently
existentially-challenged ;-)

Do any() and all() have some magic around how they are implemented in von
Neumann computers that make them faster than standard CS searching
techniques?

The RFC mentions the opportunity to parallelise these operators, if they are
included in the core. The same is true of a number of other -data RFCs, such
as element-wise array operations, and implicit loops. Is there a generic
approach we could propose that would allow parallelising of user algorithms
without having to rely only on a subset of 'parallel-enabled' builtins in
the core?