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From: Mats Weber <Mats.Weber@elca-matrix.ch>
Subject: Re: Bignum modular types in Ada95
Date: 1998/01/30
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Date: 1998-01-30T00:00:00+00:00
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> True, but the fact remains that I can say "type T is range 1..10**10;"
> on some implementations and not others, and that's a portability
> problem.  The number "10**10" isn't all *that* big -- we're not talking
> about 1000 bits, here.

OK, but you portably say "type T is range 1 .. 10**9;" and that's good enough
for me (to be accurate, it's not formally potable, but it is portable to any
reasonable machine with a compiler that follows implementation advice).

I think it's a good thing that if you say "type T is range ...", then you will
get the machine's built-in arithmetic.

> I don't care.  I'll be happy with an implementation that works.  It
> should be efficient for small numbers, and I don't care if it's
> inefficient for big numbers, and _really_ inefficient for _really_ big
> numbers.

Are you talking about supporting
   type T is range ...
for bignums, or a package declaring a private bignum type and its operations ?