| James Giles 2007-08-30, 4:20 am |
| Dan Nagle wrote:
....
>
> My comments are accurate. Please watch who you're calling a liar.
When I call you a liar you'll know it. I don't mince words.
The intrinsic functions that I now assume you're talking
about are *NOT* functionality of just the BITS data type.
If they were, you wouldn't be able to keep them without
that data type. Those intrinsic functions take INTEGER
arguments They are a new part of the functionality
of INTEGERs. I said that before the BITS data type
was even called BITS. I said that before the TYPELESS
data type was even once debated in the committee.
I've *always* said that those intrinsics were conceptually
unrelated to the proposal for a new data type. They are
no more part of the BITS feature than IAND, IOR, IEOR,
NOT, BTEST, IBCLR, IBITS, IBSET, ISHFT, ISHFTC and
MVBITS are. Those are what the new intrinsics conceptually
resemble. You don't need a new type to support them. When
anyone talked about the BITS proposal, those new intrinsics
didn't even come to my mind as being relevant to the discussion.
Those intrinsic functions (including all the old ones) would
have also been overloaded to work on the BITS type, much
as ABS or SIGN would be overloaded to work on RATIONAL,
if such a type were ever contemplated.
"BITS functionality" would be things BITS did that nothing
else in the language does (or does as well). Bit-resolution
KINDs, are an example. Whether you call it "functionality"
or not, most of the really significant features of the BITS data
type have been eliminated. And, as I've said, I didn't like BITS.
I think all of those features would be better implemented
differently. But I think some of them had sufficient merit
that it's not valid to claim that nothing was lost when the
proposal was abandoned.
--
J. Giles
"I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software
design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated
that there are no obvious deficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare
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