On 4 Oct, Chris Dornan wrote:
> As a plain, ordinary punter could I ask for one of two things:
>
> 1) More or less kill Int as a general-purpose type and adopt unbounded
> integers (Integer) as the standard integral type. If you do this then
> please put
>
> type Int = Integer
>
> into the standard prelude.
I don't understand this. For old programmes, the right thing to do
would surely be to use the compiler to determine which modules require
the addition of "import Int", and if the standard prelude has the
above declaration, wouldn't it make it harder? Probably one would put
an explicit "default (Int)" in all the modules, which doesn't seem too
much of a hardship.
> For those that need old-fasioned efficient, bounded integers these can be
> provided in a separate library module.
>
> As has been said by others, would those that would like to see Int
> knocked on the head make sure that the performance hit won't be too
> severe.
The above statements appear to be in conflict. The object of the
change is to make sure that the default behaviour is safe rather even
if less efficient. When the efficiency hit is significant and the
programmer is sure that Int is safe, Int would be used.
Am I missing the point here?
Jon
--
Jon Fairbairn [EMAIL PROTECTED]
18 Kimberley Road [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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