At 18:09 +0100 98/10/04, 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.
..
> 2) Stay with the current situation.
From the logical point of view, I think that the Int type should be
replaced by a binary type, which can be instantiated on the bit length.
Thus, Int will be the same thing (or a specialization of) as a Binary of
length 32. Then the Integer class will be used in all circumstances where
integers are appropriate.
At 05:51 -0700 98/10/06, Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
>Following quite a bit of discussion at a meeting at ICFP,
>and subsequent discussion with a smaller group at Yale,
>I must say that I am now strongly inclined to adopt (2); that is,
>to make Haskell 98 be the same as Haskell 1.4 on Int vs Integer matter.
>(This differs from the view put forth on the "state of play" web page.)
>
>The more this topic gets discussed the more I that it's like
>other Prelude things: you pull on one thing and the plate of spaghetti
>ends up in your lap. My rule of thumb is that anything that's debatable
>shouldn't be changed, and this is clearly such a thing.
The other question is how to put this forth practically in an upwards
compatible fashion, so that the different Haskell versions agree.
On this one, I do not have any opinion.
Hans Aberg
* Email: Hans Aberg <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* Home Page: <http://www.matematik.su.se/~haberg/>
* AMS member listing: <http://www.ams.org/cml/>
