scm_sloppy_memq

[Mikael Djurfeldt]

I saw that you have replaced the use of scm_sloppy_memq in some places
by scm_memq.  (Did you do the same with scm_sloppy_assq?)

Why did you do this?

The name "scm_sloppy_memq" and perhaps some of its semantics
(returning SCM_EOL) could be discussed, but I think we should have
efficient C-level versions of scm_memq and scm_assq for internal use
in the implementation of libguile.

scm_memq has an execution time which is on average a factor 3 greater
than scm_sloppy_memq.  This is because of the verification that arg 2
is a list.  It is not very good to unnecessarily loop through the
entire list in situations where we already know that arg 2 is a list.

In fact, some algorithms rely on scm_sloppy_memq being able to find
the common case in the beginning of the list.  In those cases the
effect of replacing scm_sloppy_memq with scm_memq actually causes a
change in time complexity by one order of magnitude...

Best regards,
Mikael