Prime number calculation fun

Question

We\'re having a bit of fun here at work. It all started with one of the guys setting up a Hackintosh and we were wondering whether it was faster than a Windows Box of (nearl

Answer 1

I decided to try this in F#, my first decent attempt at it. Using the Sieve of Eratosthenes on my 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo it runs through 2..150,000 in about 200 milliseconds. Each time it calls it self it's eliminated the current multiples from the list, so it just gets faster as it goes along. This is one of my first tries in F# so any constructive comments would be appreciated.

let max = 150000
let numbers = [2..max]
let rec getPrimes sieve max =
    match sieve with
    | [] -> sieve
    | _ when sqrt(float(max)) < float sieve.[0] -> sieve
    | _ -> let prime = sieve.[0]
           let filtered = List.filter(fun x -> x % prime <> 0) sieve // Removes the prime as well so the recursion works correctly.
           let result = getPrimes filtered max
           prime::result        // The filter removes the prime so add it back to the primes result.

let timer = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch()
timer.Start()
let r = getPrimes numbers max
timer.Stop()
printfn "Primes: %A" r
printfn "Elapsed: %d.%d" timer.Elapsed.Seconds timer.Elapsed.Milliseconds