Re: RFC 38 (v1) Standardise Handling Of Abnormal Numbers

[Dan Sugalski]

At 08:13 AM 8/7/00 +0100, Hildo Biersma wrote:
>I want the expressions '1 + 3.14' and '3.14 + 1' to work the same, and
>they do.  Using the current perl overloading mechanism, '1 +
>Math::BigInt' and 'Math::BigInt + 1' also mean the same (though the hack
>used for this, parameter reversing, is a bit gross).  Right now,
>'Math::BigInt + Foo' and 'Foo + Math::BigInt' only mean the same if
>either only one class implements operator overloading, or both classes
>are aware of one another.  I'd like this to be a bit safer and
>predictable in perl6.

To do it generally opens a huge can of worms. Doing it in a limited number 
of cases (int->BigInt, float->BigRat, char->UTF8) is more reasonable, and 
we can certainly manage that.

                                        Dan

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Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
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