Re: A tentative list of vtable functions

[Dan Sugalski]

At 11:49 AM 9/1/00 -0500, David L. Nicol wrote:
>Dan Sugalski wrote:
>
> > We're shooting for speed here. Any common operation that could be affected
> > by the type of the variable should be represented so a custom function can
> > be called that does exactly what needs to be done.
> >
> >                                         Dan
>
>so if I want to make up a type that is strictly a 16-bit integer, I overload
>everything except the math operations with pointers to errors?   That's the
>direction I'm going (off by myself), to merging C in, and that's why a even
>more limited base type appeals to me.

No, you provide functions that do the right thing. If you have a 16-bit 
integer scalar, you should still return a floating point value or string 
representation, or a 32-bit (or native sized, at least) integer if asked.

>But of course, with a more limited base type, every call to plus would have
>to check to see if plus was there before resolving, instead of just hopping
>over the edge and trusting the top end of the rope to be tied.

No, we hop over the edge. It's not unreasonable for perl to expect internal 
consistency.

                                        Dan

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