On Friday, 4 July 2014 at 17:05:16 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 7/4/2014 3:38 AM, Don wrote:
What is "the longest type supported by the native hardware"? I
don't know what
that means, and I don't think it even makes sense.
Most of the time, it is quite clear.
For example, Sparc has 128-bit quads, but they only have
partial support.
Effectively. they are emulated. Why on earth would you want to
use an emulated
type on some machines, but not on others?
Emulation is not native support.
Perhaps the intention was "the largest precision you can get
for free, without
sacrificing speed" then that's not clearly defined. On x86-32,
that was indeed
80 bits. But on other systems it doesn't have an obvious
answer.
On x86-64 it's not that simple. Nor on PPC or Sparc.
Yes, there is some degree of subjectivity on some platforms. I
don't see a good reason for hamstringing the compiler dev with
legalese for Platform X with legalese that isn't quite the
right thing to do for X.
I think the intention of the spec is clear, and the compiler
implementor can be relied on to exercise good judgement.
Who are these "compiler implementers"? Are you actually
suggesting that, for example, ldc and gdc would seperately decide
