Shouldn’t “Number” be reserved for a foundation type similar to NSNumber?  Or 
would this protocol actually serve that purpose?

I was planning to ask for a value type similar to NSNumber in phase 2.  I built 
one for my own code (a struct around an enum which can be Int, Decimal, 
Rational, or Rational * π) and it is super useful for handling things like user 
input where the value could be an Integer or Float/Decimal, and I always want 
the highest precision until I ask for it in a particular form.  If it came in 
as an integer, I know I can present it as an integer, and vice versa with 
decimal numbers.

Sometimes it is nice to be able to say: “The user gave me a number” and not 
really care about the underlying representation...

Thanks,
Jon



> On Jan 27, 2017, at 4:50 PM, Max Moiseev via swift-evolution 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Renaming Arithmetic to Number (and having SignedNumber) might actually end up 
> being a win, since we need to provide SignedNumber to maintain source code 
> compatibility anyway.
> 
>> On Jan 27, 2017, at 8:34 AM, Xiaodi Wu via swift-evolution 
>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> 
>> I'd always just assumed that Arithmetic was chosen so that SignedArithmetic 
>> wouldn't clash with the old SignedNumber. If that's not an issue, definitely 
>> agree that Number is the superior name.
>> On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 08:30 T.J. Usiyan via swift-evolution 
>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> Oh, I misread the arrows in that diagram and this makes much more sense now.
>> 
>> Thanks.
>> 
>> On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 9:14 AM, Stephen Canon <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> The bitwise stuff isn't on ArithMETic | ARITHmetic | Number | whatever.
>> 
>>> On Jan 27, 2017, at 9:13 AM, T.J. Usiyan via swift-evolution 
>>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Regarding `Number` or `Numeric`: Does everything in Arithmetic apply to 
>>> complex numbers and do we want it to? The bitwise stuff is where I think 
>>> that there might be a mismatch.
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 2:26 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution 
>>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> on Sun Jan 15 2017, Stephen Canon <[email protected] 
>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> > Responding to the thread in general here, not so much any specific email:
>>> >
>>> > “Arithmetic” at present is not a mathematically-precise concept, and
>>> > it may be a mistake to make it be one[1]; it’s a
>>> > mathematically-slightly-fuzzy “number” protocol.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> In that case, should we consider renaming it to “Numeric” or even
>>> “Number?”  That would at least remove the question about how to
>>> pronounce it.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> -Dave
>>> 
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