I understand a bitarray being faster than a boolean array as the first uses bitwise (hardware) operators. Is this a correct understanding of the situation? Why then is a boolean array not implemented in that way? I expect there to be a good reason which I just don't know.
I'd like to be able to bit shift and test a large (1024) array of bits as fast as possible (runs thousands of times per iteration). Should I go with the bitarray (I don't see the shift and test functions) or create my own bitarray somehow using intrinsics? I'd rather use existing implementations, but if the speed is a factor off or something..