I now think you've been right all along; Integer should have been the normal numeric type. Of course, Integer is also machine dependent, but you can have larger numbers before everything turns to bottom.
The Int type would then be in a implementation dependent library, and would promise the best speed. And for types like Int8, Int16, etc, there should be a number of different types for each of them, because there are at least three different kinds of overflow semantics which are all useful. -- Lennart On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Jon Fairbairn <jon.fairba...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote: > Conal Elliott <co...@conal.net> writes: >> Oh -- not one version of Int for 32-bit execution and another version for >> 64-bit execution? Seen on #haskell today: >> >> <mux> > maxBound :: Int >> <lambdabot> 9223372036854775807 > > I've always been opposed to having Int "built in" (in > contrast to having Int32 and Int64 defined in a library > somewhere). It's much cleaner to have Integer as the > language integer. A reference implementation of Int8 (for > brevity!) could be written with (off the top of my head) > > data Int8 = Int8 !Bool !Bool !Bool !Bool !Bool !Bool !Bool !Bool > > which would specify the semantics exactly. > > -- > Jón Fairbairn jon.fairba...@cl.cam.ac.uk > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-prime mailing list > Haskell-prime@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-prime > _______________________________________________ Haskell-prime mailing list Haskell-prime@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-prime
