From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public From: Alan Lovejoy Subject: Re: OO, C++, and something much better! Date: 1997/01/22 Message-ID: <32E688E1.2D81@concentric.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 211538345 references: <5bphq4$5js@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <32E05FAF.47BA@concentric.net> <5buodl$bci@boursy.news.erols.com> <32E2FEC7.2F7B@concentric.net> <6PE5zLpF3RB@herold.franken.de> <32E57E2B.6CB7@epix.net> <32E57FBC.2325@epix.net> <5c4ita$3qs@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: Modulation mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.object x-mailer: Mozilla 2.01Gold (Win95; U) Date: 1997-01-22T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Fergus Henderson wrote: > > "Matthew S. Whiting" writes: > > >Anyone, know REALLY how Smalltalk got its start in the financial > >application space? > > I don't know how it got its start there, but I have heard that it got a > bit of a boost after the stockmarket crash in '87. Apparently the > volume of shares traded was very high, and many financial programs > failed, because the numbers involved were so large that they overflowed > various limits, but the Smalltalk programs kept running, because > Smalltalk quietly switches to using floating point arithmetic when > integer arithmetic overflows. (Well, that's the rumour anyway. I > don't know how much truth there is to it.) 1. I've never heard any such story before (although it could well be true). 2. Technical point: Smalltalk doesn't switch over to using Floats when the range of SmallInteger is exceeded (typically -2^29..+2^29, although it varies). But it does switch to using LargeIntegers (whose upper value limit is constrained only by available memory). It does this completely automatically. LargeIntegers and SmallIntegers are completely interchangeable. Similarly, Smalltalk Dates don't suffer from the Year 2000 problem. The year is stored as an Integer (which would probably be a SmallInteger, but will automatically convert to a LargeInteger as required). -- Alan L. Lovejoy |==============================================| Smalltalk Consultant | Beware of Geeks bearing GIFs! | alovejoy@concentric.net |==============================================|