What are some real-world examples of lazy evaluation?

What are some real-world examples of lazy evaluation?

Lazy evaluation is a programming technique where expressions are not evaluated until their values are needed. A common example is in functional programming languages like Haskell.

Can you give me a specific example from Haskell?

Sure! In Haskell, you can define an infinite list of Fibonacci numbers. The list is generated lazily, so you can compute only as many Fibonacci numbers as you need.

That sounds interesting! How does it handle memory with infinite lists?

Haskell uses a technique called 'thunks' to manage memory. It only keeps the necessary parts of the list in memory, allowing it to handle infinite structures efficiently.

Are there other programming languages that use lazy evaluation?

Yes, languages like Scala and Clojure also support lazy evaluation, allowing for similar benefits in performance and memory management.