A few weeks ago, when Peter Norvig wrote his great article on writing a spell checker, I ported it to Haskell. Unfortunately, it was super slow and ugly. So ugly and slow that I was too embarassed to put it in my semi-public sandbox. I figured this is because I simply don't write that much Haskell. Sadly, it seems I'm not the only one to having trouble. This thread on fa.haskell is a great way to get some fresh ideas if you wrote your own slow port. Of course, theirs is still slow but less ugly than mine.

Next, I'll port it to Erlang and see if I can get it faster. One immediate upside is that mnesia gives me persistence and distribution for cheap. It won't be a fair comparison since I have far more experience with erlang than haskell.

As an aside, I haven't had time to put up my rome photos and diary yet as I've been fighting an ear infection I came down with after a jetlag-induced cold.

Another nice thing about not working: I don't have to feel guilty for taking sick days.